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How I Became an Ironman – My 1978 Recollections
By Henry Forrest
My absolute first conscious introduction to IRONMAN was on a Sunday morning while I was stationed as a U. S. Marine on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Sunday mornings at the Forrest house were normally low key. I would usually get up and go for a long run before the family woke . Later we would have breakfast and then go to church.
On this particular morning I don’t remember whether I ran or not. I do remember playing with Toni and Bonnie, our two daughters, while Lou, my wife, read the Sunday paper. When I read the paper, I just scan it. If a headline or a picture doesn’t tweak my interest, I just flip to the next page. Lou, on the other hand, READS the paper. Almost nothing escapes her attention. That is why I credit her for getting me involved! Had it just been me reading the paper that morning, I would have never known about the race that would forever change our lives.
I was a 35-year-old Marine Gunnery Sergeant stationed at Camp Smith on the island of Oahu. We had only a few weeks remaining of a three-year tour there. We were both very involved in sports. I played intramural softball, nine-man tackle football, coached a women’s softball team on which Lou played, and we both were avid runners. We ran every day at lunch and in any and all races on the island of which we became aware.
Hawaii was the perfect place for us at that time in our lives. We were caught up in the running revolution, and Bill Rogers and Frank Shorter were household names. It seemed like there was some kind of race going on every other weekend. Fun runs, 10Ks, relays, or marathons - it didn’t matter. We were there – and it was a family thing. The culture in Hawaii encouraged family outings, and our children always went with us to the races. Military friends would go along as well to support us, and they would watch our children until we had finished racing. Often we’d have picnic lunches in the park following the races.
Genetics had determined that I would be short and fat. The Marine Corps didn’t mind me being short (at 5’ 10”), but fat wasn’t allowed. Running to meet Marine Corps regulations was a necessity that turned into an obsession with me. I felt so good when I ran and enjoyed it so much that I tried to convince everyone I came in contact with that it should be their obsession, too. Somehow I got Lou to believe, and she ran every day. Even the children at seven and four years old were running some. In fact, Toni and Bonnie both ran a 10K at Schofield barracks at that tender age. They ran the entire way without stopping - as Bonnie (4 yrs) encouraged us by saying “walking is yucky, right dad?” As you can see, the entire family was hooked.
Back to that Sunday morning - while reading the paper, Lou ran across the article that Navy Commander John Collins had submitted explaining about the race and asking anyone interested to give him a call. Lou said, “Henry, this sounds like something you should do.” When I asked what she was talking about, she explained that some people were going to be running a “different” kind of race. The word “race” got my attention. When I asked what was different, she read from the article that “first you have to swim 2.4 miles in the ocean, then get on a bike and ride 112 miles and follow that with a marathon.” My immediate response was that “they are crazy”, to which she countered, “Well, you’re crazy. I think you should do it.” I laughed it off, and she kept reading the paper.
I had never been a distance swimmer. In fact, the most I normally swam would be from the diving board end back to the ladder, and I hadn’t ridden a bike since about the fifth or sixth grade. I did, however, have a great running history. Our housing was six miles from the base, and I would run to work. At lunch every day I would run a 10-mile loop from Camp Smith to Pearl Harbor and back with several other Marines. We were known as the “Run for Lunch Bunch”. If you do the math, I was averaging about 16 miles a day. (I told you I was obsessed!)
The guys I ran with – the Run for Lunch Bunch - were all faster than I was, and the more I thought about this new race, the more it intrigued me. If I could do that race and they didn’t, when we returned to the mainland, they wouldn’t have had time to best me - so I would leave as the champion. I know it’s a weird way of thinking, but it made sense to me. Lou and I talked it over and agreed we would make the phone call to Commander Collins.
This was a long way from my childhood. I always liked sports and played some Little League baseball (mostly neighborhood sand lot ball though). The same with football - some organized - in junior high school and my freshman year of high school. I attended high school in Valdosta, Georgia. History speaks for itself about that school’s football program under the coaching of Wright Bazemore. Not only did I not think I could measure up to play on a team that attained National rankings, but my grades wouldn’t allow me to play either. “No pass, no play” was not even thought of in the 50’s except by my parents, but that was their philosophy. It was really okay with me because deep down I knew I wasn’t tough enough to make that team. I was short, fat, and slow.
The military wasn’t an all-volunteer service back in 1964, and every male had to register for the draft on his 18th birthday. As I faced the fact that I wasn’t going to attend a college, going into the military was a certainty. The only thing that could keep me out was not passing the physical.
Don’t ask me why a fat little kid that couldn’t make the high school football team thought he could make it in the Marine Corps, but I did. The other branches were not an option. I only wanted to be a Marine. This was the best personal decision of my life. The Marine Corps promised, “Send us your boy and we’ll send you back a man.” That was the way to do it. If I couldn’t make myself a man, then I would let them do it for me.
I passed the physical and reported to Parris Island, South Carolina, in July of 1964. I got there weighing around 220lbs. On a 5’10” frame, I looked like a basketball with lips. I marched across the parade deck on graduation day 13 weeks later, a lean mean 180 lbs. I was a United States Marine, and I would take that over playing football any day. I didn’t intend on making the Corps a career, and I returned home after a tour in Viet Nam and realized there wasn’t any thing in Valdosta that was close to what I had in the Marines. You either farmed or worked retail, and neither of those appealed to me. I went back into the Marine Corps where I remained until I retired at the rank of First Sergeant in 1984.
Over that period of time I had various duties, but the one that made all the difference in me was becoming a Drill Instructor. I always considered myself a good Marine. I was patriotic; I always did the best job I thought I was capable of doing; and I loved the Corps. But once I became a Drill Instructor, I became a professional Marine.
The one thing the Marine Corps teaches you is that the human body is capable of doing so much more than the human brain will allow it to do (i.e., “Julie Moss”. I don’t think she is a Marine, but she could have been. For those of you not familiar with the name, Julie Moss was the lady who crawled across the finish line at the IRONMAN in Kona, Hawaii, losing first place to Kathleen McCartney.)
The Marine Corps claims they make Marines at Parris Island, South Carolina and San Diego, California. I disagree. I believe Marines are born. They just attend training at those locations. Some outsiders claim that the Marine Corps brainwashes their recruits. That’s not true. They are not brainwashed; they’re just thoroughly convinced. I was thoroughly convinced I could strike matches under water if I needed a fire down there. That kind of attitude was what got me through the first Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon.
We made the call to Commander Collins, and he gave us a date to go to his home. There were going to be other people there that wanted to do the same race. We discussed the rules and regulations. Some of them were: Each athlete had to have his own support crew; each one had to have a paddler on a surfboard accompany him during the swim (the swim was to be first. No one would want to swim after biking or running. Cramps would certainly be a problem.); the crew would provide all supplies, including nourishment.
The main thing that stands out in my mind (of those things not in existence today) is that every athlete had a vote in the writing of the rules. If there were to be any changes, each athlete had an equal vote, and no one person’s vote carried more weight than another. The one taking all the risk in this huge undertaking was the athlete. I always respected the fact that we were the ones to make the decisions that would ultimately affect us.
This was a big issue the second year we ran because of a typhoon off the coast of Oahu. There were 29 participants that year, and we were scheduled to run on Saturday morning. The weather was so bad Commander Collins said everyone should just come back the next day and we’d run it on Sunday. We returned on Sunday, and the weather was no better so he said, “Let’s just run it next weekend.”
There were several of us who had come from the mainland and had to return home before that next weekend. We were reminded by someone that everyone had an equal vote, so we were asked to vote on whether or not to run the event in spite of the bad weather or wait another week. John Dunbar brought it to our attention that the swim portion of the event was modeled after the “Waikiki Open Ocean Roughwater Swim” and ask the question, “Can anyone deny that that water isn’t rough?” Fourteen of the 29 voted to wait a week, and the other 15 voted to run it then. The weather was so bad the safety boat couldn’t get out, but since each swimmer had a paddler on a surfboard to accompany him, we started it anyway.
For the first IRONMAN, each athlete had a map and directions of the course. It was each athlete’s responsibility to follow the proper course, and there were several check points that we were to call from to mark our progress and position. Everyone was on the honor system. Since this was billed as an individual event, if you chose to cheat, you only cheated yourself. I don’t remember all the rules, nor do I have a copy of them any more. I do have my copy of the directions, and I treasure that piece of paper.
Commander Collins and some of the other athletes tried to get someone to sponsor our race, but no one wanted to associate their company name or reputation with a bunch of crazies. I don’t remember who came up with the amount of the entry fee, but it was $5.00. After the race, Commander Collins had not had to use all the money collected, and he divided it equally, refunding each of us $2.00. So the entry fee for the first Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon was a whopping $3.00.
We also decided that we would meet back at his home a day or so after the race with some of our own tee shirts, and we would silk screen our own “finisher” shirts. That is why there are no uniformed “Original 1978 IRONMAN” tee shirts. We just took whatever shirts we had and did the silk screening in his garage.
The best my memory serves me, from the time we contacted Commander Collins to the day of the race was about three to four weeks - not a lot of time to train. I had done no swim training or biking. I didn’t even own a bicycle. Bicycles were for children. With that in mind, I considered them a toy. I was a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, and I didn’t play with toys. Since that time I’ve changed my mind about that. Even if it was a toy, I needed one if I was going to do this race.
Prior to this, the last time I had anything to do with bicycles they had big tires with big fenders, big saddles, a bell on the handlebar, a horn powered by a couple of “D” size batteries, and no gears. To apply the brakes you simply pressed the pedals in the opposite direction. A really nice one could be purchased for about $75 to $100. Growing up in the rural South, that was the only type of bike to be had.
We had heard and seen pictures of bikes known to us as “English Racers”. They looked really strange. The handle bars were bent downwards; the saddles were very thin, as were the tires; and we understood that they had multiple gears. Wow!
Finding a bicycle on a Marine Corps base was difficult. Most everyone thought of bikes the way I did. They were toys, and Marines didn’t need them. The cost had increased considerably since I was a small boy. I almost went into shock - $200 to $300 was out of the question just to ride for one day, and I would probably never need a bike again (or so I thought).
I put the word out that I needed a bike. A couple of weeks passed, and I was getting nervous. I still didn't have a bike. I was walking down the hallway of the Headquarters building at Camp Smith, and a Major stopped me and asked if I still needed a bicycle. I told him I did, and he said he had one he would loan me. I asked him what kind it was, and he said it was a Sears “Free Spirit”. Not knowing anything about bikes, that didn’t mean much to me, and I asked him to describe it. When he said it was a 10 speed, I was afraid to even hope it was an “English Racer”. “Yes, it has gears,” he said, “Ten of them - with narrow tires and brakes on the handlebars.”
I couldn’t believe my luck! Just plain dumb luck. This man was going to let me borrow a racing bike. Not only was I going to be able to do the race, I might even have a chance to win. He gave me directions to his home and said to stop by that afternoon on my way home and pick it up. I was on cloud nine all day. Time just wouldn’t pass fast enough.
As soon as I got off work I drove straight to his house to get the bike. When I pulled into the driveway, my heart sank. “Surely, that’s not the bike he’s giving me,” I thought. There must be some mistake. First of all, it was yellow. Marines don’t do yellow. Second, there was this seat on the back to carry a child. And third, there was a wicker basket on the handlebars. I was afraid to ask if this was the one he was letting me borrow. I did, and it was.
He could tell I wasn’t doing well, and he explained that all that stuff would come off. We got to work taking off the extras and in a few minutes it looked a little more like something I could use. It was still yellow, but it also was still a racing bike. We even removed the kickstand to make it lighter. It was a sure thing now – I was going to do the race.
A couple of my running buddies weren’t as excited about this thing as I was. Some of their comments were, “Gunny, you’re going to hurt yourself.” “This is a stupid race; don’t do it.” “It’s too late,” I explained. “I have already paid my entry fee.” Each one of my running buddies said, “I’ll give you your money back if you’ll just pull out.” I could have gotten my money back and made $10, but something kept telling me I could do this thing. I told them I was going through with it, and that I needed a support crew. I asked if they would help Lou support me on race day. A couple of them agreed; things were starting to come together.
I needed to work on a plan. I couldn’t expect to do well in this race without a plan. “Two and four-tenths of a mile isn’t that far to swim,” I thought. “It’s only the length of Waikiki Beach. You can see the finish line from the starting line. No problem. Then all I have to do is ride a bike 112 miles. I’ll get to sit down the whole way and I have gears. No problem. All I have left is the marathon. I’m a runner and I’ve already done the Honolulu Marathon three times, so I’m familiar with the course. No problem.” I remember reading somewhere that “Ignorance is Bliss”. This won’t be a problem. I can do it.
Race day started out beautifully. My support crew and I arrived at Sansui beach before daylight. Some people were already there, and as I remember it, it was very casual. I wasn’t overly excited, nor was I nervous. I probably should have been. We felt we had all our bases covered as far as supplies (clothing, food, drinks, and first aid items) and logistics were concerned. The support crew would be with me the entire way; if anything went wrong or I just couldn’t go any further, all I would have to do would be to get in the van and go home.
I don’t remember who my paddler was that day because I had never met him. He was a friend of a friend. I did know he was a Marine and he liked to surf. He owned his own surfboard and had agreed to accompany me during the swim portion.
It was just about daylight and we had one last little meeting to refresh ourselves with the rules. Only the person on the surfboard could be on the surfboard in any way. If you used it to rest or to be carried in any way you would be disqualified. We were to enter the water and swim straight out past the reef, turn right and swim the length of Waikiki Beach. Our landmark was the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We were told that there was a big telephone pipeline to watch for. We were to turn right and swim back to the beach area when we saw it. We were to exit on a portion of the beach in front of Fort DeRussy.
I had been to the beach many times and played in the waves. I had done a little swimming, but nothing like what I was about to do. The smartest move I made in the swimming event was to tell my paddler to stay in front of me instead of behind me. If he was behind me he could keep an eye on me in case I started having trouble; but if he stayed in front of me, then he could sight in on the finish line and keep me on a straight course. I made him promise not to get too far ahead, and he did exactly that.
As soon as I exited the water, I was concentrating on the bike transition. I don’t think I ever thanked the Marine who served as my paddler. I would like to take this opportunity (if you’re reading this and remember being my paddler) to thank you for a job well done.
We started just at sunrise, and after about five minutes I knew I was in trouble. I knew I was in trouble because that was the furthest I’d ever swam continually, and I was beginning to realize just how far 2.4 miles was going to be.
The rules didn’t specify any particular stroke, so I thought I would stay with free style as long as I could and then do something else. It wasn’t long before I was tired of freestyle. I did something like a sidestroke for a while and then went back to free style. I alternated with those two until I just had to try some other alternatives which looked like a backstroke and a breaststroke.
After alternating between all these different strokes I told myself I needed to rest. Since we could not hold onto the surfboard I started treading water. I wasn’t real smart, but it didn’t take long to figure out that if I was treading water, I was using my arms and legs and not making any forward progress, so I didn’t do that any more. “Just do anything that will get you closer to the end of the swim” was my next plan.
I was far enough off shore and moving so slowly it seemed to me that I wasn’t making any progress at all. It was becoming frustrating to be working so hard and seemingly not move at all. I was experiencing something I hadn’t planned on. I knew that swimming in the ocean meant I would fight some currents and waves, but every now and then when I was on top of a swell, I would reach with one of my arms to stroke again and I would only get air. I would be expecting my hand to plunge back into the water, but nothing was there. It was like running in the dark and expecting your foot to make contact with the ground, but instead stepping in a hole, or on uneven ground causing you to stumble. It felt like I was stumbling in the water.
All of a sudden I had a mouth full of salt water. I was coughing and all out of rhythm. I had to just stop and cough, regain my composure and begin again. After what seemed like an eternity, I realized I was getting closer to the end of the swim and began to get motivated again. As I got nearer to shore, I decided to stick with the free style and even started swimming like I was in a race. I was swimming stronger and faster and getting closer. The closer I got to the end of the swim, the stronger and faster I swam, and it seemed the beach was approaching me at a pretty good pace. It was probably the waves pushing me but that wasn’t illegal. I welcomed any and all help. Whatever worked was okay by me.
If I had known what I was in for on the bike portion of the race, I would have been worried about getting out of the water, but I didn’t; so I wasn’t. I was excited. All I had to do now was ride the bike a few hours and then I’d be home free. “Just a marathon, and that’s nothing,” I told myself. My plan was working. Or so I thought.
I’ll bet I was the first person to ever wear a tri-suit. I had decided to swim in my running shorts, and since I didn’t own a bike I didn’t own biking shorts. I didn’t even know they made such clothing, and they may not have back in the late seventies. Even if they did, I didn’t own a pair, so I was naturally going to bike in my running shorts.
All I had to do in the swim/ bike transition was put my running shoes on. My borrowed “Free Sprit” bike didn’t have toe clips, so I wore running shoes. In theory, I thought that if I biked in running shoes, that would speed up my bike/run transition because I wouldn’t have to take time to change. Man, everything was starting to fall in place. I got my shoes on, pulled a tee shirt on and started my bike ride.
Moving through Honolulu wasn’t a problem except for the traffic. Because there were so few athletes doing the event, the authorities wouldn’t block off the roads or intersections. We were on our own. The terrain was flat and I was on my way.
It was obvious by the time I got over Diamond Head that I probably should have gotten someone to explain to me how to shift the bike gears. I tested them some one day and knew that in some gears it was very easy to pedal, and in some it was very hard. There were some in the middle too, so I knew if I was going up hill I could use the easy ones, and the hard ones were what I used when going down hill. If I was getting tired, I would use the ones in between.
My problem was that I hadn’t practiced enough to know where the gears were when I needed them. I would start up a hill and start experimenting with which gear I needed. I would shift and it would get harder, so then I would shift again. Sometimes it got easier, sometimes harder. I just didn’t know which sequence to use or where each gear was. “This is insane,” I thought. “I don’t want to do this the whole way.” But at this time, I didn’t seem to have another alternative.
After going up the hill that overlooks Hanama Bay, I felt help was on the way. A rider was coming from behind me, and he didn’t seem to be having any trouble at all. It was Frank Day. Biking wasn’t new to him, so as he got within speaking distance, I asked him if he could tell me how to shift the gears on my bike. He just flew by me like I was sitting still. At first I thought that was pretty rude of him, but hey, it was a race and I was a competitor, so if he didn’t want to give information to the enemy, that was okay. I was a Marine; that made sense. I told myself that I would just have to resort to OJT (On the Job Training). I kept on pedaling and shifting.
After awhile I felt that I was getting the hang of it. People often ask me what the hardest part of the triathlon was. I always say that it was sitting on that little tiny bicycle seat for seven or eight hours. They usually laugh and say “no, really, what was the hardest?” Seriously, sitting on that little tiny seat for seven or eight hours was absolutely horrible.
I was and still am a pretty active person and did not stay in one place very long. I wouldn’t even sit on a couch for seven straight hours, and that seat was getting on my nerves - especially the ones in my rear end.
The weather on race day was great. The sun had come out, and riding along the shore there was always a good breeze. By the time I had gotten around to Kaneohe Bay, it started to rain some, but that was okay too because it gave me a little break from the sun.
A lot of the course was obvious: Keep the ocean on your right and the mountains on your left. Just keep pedaling. Not knowing the exact route while riding through some of the towns, I would need directions. One of my “Run for Lunch Bunch” friends, Nolan Morris, was helping Lou as part of my support crew. He was reading the map and giving me navigational help.
Then something went wrong in the town of Kaneohe. Nolan either read the map wrong, or my rear end was hurting so bad I could have misunderstood him, but I took a wrong turn and got lost. Lou and Nolan couldn’t stay right with me all the time, so they would make sure I was okay then pull up ahead of me to stop and let me pass in a long game of leapfrog.
Somehow they found me and told me I was heading in the wrong direction. The rules stated that if you got off course you couldn’t take the shortest route back to the course. You would have to retrace your route and get back on course at the point where you had made the error. Thank goodness I hadn’t gone more than several tenths of a mile before they made me aware that I was off course.
I had ridden the bike somewhere around 30 or 35 miles and by then had decided that the person who designed my bicycle seat must have been a sadist. No one in his right mind would design a seat to be sat on for any length of time and make it that small and narrow! At one point I remember thinking, “the saddle must have fallen off, because it feels like I’m sitting on the post.” I knew it hadn’t, but just for a visual confirmation, I stood up and looked. Yep, it was still there.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, something had to be done about this seat problem, and a solution came to me. I knew we had some towels in the van. If we had any tape, I would just make a cushion. Lou and Nolan said that indeed we did have some duct tape. This was in the days before disposable diapers. We had two daughters, so Lou was very experienced at folding cloth diapers. We pulled over, and she folded a towel in the shape of a triangle. Then Nolan and I got busy taping it to the seat. When I tried it out, it was like heaven. Oh, yeah! Life was good. But sometimes good things don’t last.
I wasn’t exactly in the lap of luxury, but about a mile or so down the road I began to understand why the seat was so narrow. I had started to develop a rash on my inner thighs where they were rubbing against the towel. It didn’t take a smart man to figure out that I still had about 90 miles to go in addition to running a marathon. That wasn’t going to happen with raw thighs. Pain is temporary, pride is forever, (old Marine Corps saying). The towel came off.
Overall physically, I was doing remarkably well. I was familiar with the island and most of its landmarks, so as I would pass one, I would immediately start looking forward to the next one. The bike didn’t have toe clips, so I wasn’t able to lift the pedals on the back stroke. It was just push, push, push.
One area that I didn’t expect to bother me on the bike was my fingers going to sleep. I remember moving my hands in every position imaginable. Every so often I would have to just turn loose with one hand and shake it, then shake the other to get the feeling back in them.
It hadn’t rained much since early morning, and the afternoon sun was getting hot. There was no such thing as an energy drink then. When running marathons, it was common to drink de-fizzed Coke. We prepared it by pouring Coca-Cola into an open bowl and letting it sit overnight. What you wound up with was flavored sugar water. Since we didn’t know any better, we thought that was doing the trick.
I knew we would need something more nourishing for an event lasting that long, so Lou and I came up with a concoction we called “Super Juice.” I don’t remember all the ingredients, but one of them was protein powder that was to be mixed with milk. I know that sounds crazy now, but we just didn’t know any better. We put it in a blender with some bananas, a couple of raw eggs, and I’m not sure what else. Because of the milk and eggs, we had to keep it cool, so we put it on ice in a cooler in the van. Believe it or not, it seemed to work. Maybe it was all in my head, but it seemed to help.
We also carried some square caramel candy and some peanut butter sandwiches. I was never hungry during the event, but I ate to keep fueling my body. I don’t know if anyone doing the first Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon was absolutely confident it could be done. I know I wasn’t sure, but I did know I was going to go as far as humanly possible for me. So, as more and more of the bike miles passed, the more confident I became.
Although I was getting tired, I felt that if I ever got to the marathon, I would be okay. That was familiar territory for me. Somewhere between the North Shore and the Sugar Plantation I was just riding along in a daze - just pedaling and pedaling mechanically.
All of a sudden a Volkswagen Bug full of surfers passed me on my right side. I was on the edge of the pavement, and they were off the road. The traffic was bad because of a surfing competition that was about to start, and they didn’t want to wait, so they just bypassed all the other cars. That snapped me out of my daze. Then I was wide awake and conscious of my surroundings. I was also aware of how hot it had gotten, and I knew I still had about thirty-five or forty miles left. I started to feel as I did in the swim when I thought I wasn’t making any progress. I had terrain features as interim goals to reach, but I had been biking for so long and still had so far to go that it seemed like the biking event would never end. The good thing about the last 20 miles or so was that the terrain was right on the beach and relatively flat. But that was about to change. I made the turn that would take me through the Dole pineapple plantation towards Waipahu. I don’t know if the hills were any steeper, but I was definitely not as fresh as I had been several hours earlier.
There was one hill in particular that I remember. Thank goodness I had mastered the gears by that time and was in my lowest one. The hill was extremely steep and seemed to go on forever. I had to stand up and pull upward against the handlebars. I was no longer making continuous revolutions, but a series of half circles. I was barely moving fast enough to keep the bike balanced.
Towards the last of the hill, Nolan was walking beside me saying, “Come on Gunny; you can make it. Don’t quit now; you’ve almost got it. Don’t let it beat you, Gunny” (“Gunny” is a shortened version of the Marine Corps rank of Gunnery Sergeant. It’s an accepted name for the rank, but it seems also to almost become the person’s name, or at least nickname). I don’t know if Nolan was calling me by my nickname or if he was reminding me that I was a Marine, and as such I had better not stop. If that was not his intent, it worked anyway. I finally made it to the top, and it was clear sailing all the way into Waipahu. What a relief it was to get to that little town! It’s on the outskirts of Pearl City, and Pearl City was where I lived and meant I was getting closer to Honolulu.
I started to think that I could see the finish line. I couldn’t, of course. I still had to get through Pearl City, past the airport and then it was still a good way to Honolulu. It was all commercialized and seemed to run together, so it seemed like I was almost in Honolulu already. I told myself to just keep pedaling. The run was coming up, which was my element. Then all the crazy stuff would stop and I could do what I did best - run. I got past the airport and started into the industrial area and docks on the edge of Honolulu. Any minute now and that bike would be a thing of the past. The clock tower - there it was. That was the bike/run transition point. I had finally made it. I told myself that if I ever got back on a bicycle again, it would not be without a fight.
I didn’t get to pick up speed as I neared the transition area as I did during the swim. My legs just wouldn’t pedal any faster. It was like I was mechanical from the waist down. My legs were moving all by themselves, and I couldn’t make them change. I tried to make them go faster, but they wouldn’t. I‘m not sure, but I don’t think I could have made them go slower either. They were on autopilot - just pedaling.
I braked until the bike came to a stop. I got off the bike, and my support crew was there. Some of the race officials were there too. “You’re doing great. Keep going. Looking good,” they were saying. “Yeah, right,” I thought. I felt like death sucking on a life saver. I didn’t think I had ever been that tired before. But I didn’t have to bike any more. Now I could run. But something was wrong with my legs! They didn’t want to run. They couldn’t run. They had been pedaling for so long and were so used to moving in circles that they still wanted to pedal. Had I ruined my legs? I was afraid that if I looked as uncoordinated as I felt, people would be “cracking up” watching it. It was a horrible feeling, but after a mile or so, it started to fade away. I realized I was getting my pace back. My stride was good.
Outside of starting a marathon tired, I felt good. That’s what I had been waiting on. I ran through Honolulu one block over from Waikiki beach. I was now running through Kapiolani Park, which was where we had started from more than ten hours earlier. I had covered about six miles running, and I was going over Diamond Head. I was really feeling comfortable. I was very familiar with the territory because we had run there often.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t in a state of euphoria, but I felt really good considering what I’d already put my body through. For the first time, I felt confident that I could finish the thing. That feeling lasted until I had reached the turn-around point of the marathon. I don’t know why, but it seemed that for no reason I was getting tired extremely suddenly, like when a car runs out of gas. One minute you’re going along great, and then it sputters a few times and you’re coasting to a stop. Just like that. I was through. My good stride had been reduced to a shuffle. Nolan and Lou were taking turns running beside me. That was allowed back then as long as they didn’t physically assist you. Your supporters could run or walk with you, talk with you, and give you encouragement and nourishment; but that was it.
What I needed was a finish line. My confidence was beginning to fade fast, and I still had another ten miles to go. I didn’t see how I could make it. I was trying to think of every motivational tool possible, but my legs felt like they were made of lead. There was no way I could make it going that slowly in that much pain and with no energy.
I was not just tired; I was tired of being tired. I was tired of hurting. I was tired of just shuffling. I was tired of running in the dark and not being able so see well. I’m sure Nolan and Lou were tired too. They had been at it as long as I had, and it had been a very long day. They were still there encouraging me, though. They hadn’t given up, and they hadn’t given up on me. I really didn’t want Nolan to start that “Come on Gunny” stuff again. I didn’t need to be reminded that I was a Marine. I knew I was, but I also knew I was a Marine who was about to stop before I had completed my mission.
When you’re that tired, you don’t think clearly. I couldn’t even do simple math. If it was taking me fifteen minutes to cover a mile, and I had four miles to go, how long would it take me? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be finished.
Not only could I not think straight, my mind played tricks on me, too. I thought of all kinds of crazy things. My mind went way back to my early Marine Corps days when I was running a PFT (Physical Fitness Test) at the Marine Corps Supply Center at Albany, Georgia.
There had been a Marine there who was raised in the steel mill country of Pennsylvania. His family had worked in the mills their whole lives, and he didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. He wanted to do something different, so he had joined the Corps. We were running the PFT on a hot and humid summer day in South Georgia. I was complaining and griping like any young person being pushed harder than he wanted to go. He just looked at me and said, “The hotter the heat, the stronger the steel.” It didn’t help me much doing the PFT that day, but for some reason, that little steel mill phrase was the spark that I needed. Just when I needed it, my mind had gone back 10 years and reminded me of something that I hadn’t thought of since the day he had said it.
Since that day on my first triathlon, that little phrase has gotten me through a lot of tough times. I resolved at that moment that “I’m not going to stop, and I will finish this race. I may not feel good, and I may not look good, but I am going to finish.”
By that time I had only about three miles to go; I knew I was going to finish. There was no question of “could I;” I was just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and sooner or later I would see the finish line.
Then the unthinkable happened. An oncoming car was approaching us, but we didn’t think anything of it. We were in a residential neighborhood on a public road. Why, I don’t know, but as the car went by, the passenger on the right side of the car threw a cup of ice out the window at us and hollered something. The ice hit me square in the chest. It felt like what getting shot with a shotgun must feel like. All those pieces of ice hitting me at once was almost more than I could stand.
Why would someone do that? I really believe that if they had known everything I had done that day, they wouldn’t have done it. If it had happened five or six miles back, I would probably have stopped, but not now. I could just about smell the finish line.
Just over Diamond Head was Kapiolani Park and the finish line. As we topped the crest of Diamond Head, Lou and Nolan left me to get to the finish line. I was okay, nothing would stop me now. It was just before midnight, and it was misting rain. I was seeing by the light of the street lights, but I couldn’t see the finish line. I thought that it must be right in front of me, but where was it? I couldn’t see it.
I could imagine the crowd encouraging me on. It just had to come into sight soon. Then I could see the crowd. Lou and Nolan were the entire crowd. The voices I was hearing were the same ones I had heard all day. Lou and Nolan were the only people there, except for one man sitting in a lawn chair with a stop watch. “Are you doing the triathlon?” he said. “Yes, I am. I’m Henry Forrest.” “Good job,” he said. And that was it. It was over. I had done it. Then we all got in the van and went home. I was an IRONMAN. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had come in seventh place. I hadn’t won it, even with the “English Racer,” but I had done it. Seventh out of fifteen. I’ll take that.
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