Now: what's all of this got to do with you? Maybe nothing, but maybe the same thing it has to do with my parents.
They'd never seen Cherie race, and in muted tones occasionally asked the same kinds of questions we've heard so many times before, variations of "So, how long does she plan to keep this up?" As though triathlon was some kind of momentary aberration to be undertaken once and quickly abandoned, like bungee-jumping or alligator wrestling.
This past summer my parents came to Lake Placid along with my nephew to watch her compete in the inaugural Ironman USA. Despite having seen countless of my videotapes, they'd never had the full, on-site experience, and I think they still haven't quite gotten over it.
The weather for the week prior had been bleak, a disheartening and forbidding mixture of intermittent showers and thick, gloomy clouds. Every athletic shop in the county was sold out of arm warmers by Tuesday, and the talk amongst entrants congregating on the course for familiarization workouts ran exclusively to how to cope with slick roads, wet shoes and the kind of sodden cold that settles with malicious glee in the bones and joints.
Fortunately, the weather was about the only serious problem that threatened the event. Everyone expected the organization of such a complex undertaking in a first-time location to experience teething problems, but it seemed as though Lake Placid had been hosting the Ironman for years and had the routine down cold. Admittedly, this state of affairs was at least partially enabled by the fact that the site of the 1980 Winter Olympics was a near-perfect venue, but that in no way detracted from the admiration that rightfully accrued to the race organizers who, had they been running things in 1980, would undoubtedly have left the world with a better impression of those chaotic games than it actually got.
I used to come to Lake Placid with my family when I was growing up, and it's always been difficult to convince the uninitiated that the same state in which New York City is ensconced could also be home to such pristine alpine splendor. Already word is passing that this might be the most beautiful and dramatic Ironman course outside of the Big Island, redolent of pine and intercut throughout with crystalline water cascading gently right beside many of the roads. Startling vistas appear around nearly every turn, and much of the landscape is dominated by two massive ski jump towers that jut up from the forest and serve as comforting beacons connecting racers out on the course with the central site.
And what could be more thrilling than ending an endurance event on the same speedskating oval on which Eric Heiden stunned the world nearly two decades ago?
As race morning dawned, streaks of light in the eastern sky encouraged racers to dare hope that a break in the weather was imminent. When the clouds began to thin even further, even the most jaded rationalists among the crowd had cause to doubt their conviction that this had to be a coincidence. The sun, visible for the first time in a week, continued to burn through the gloom as it rose, and spirits rose right along with it.
My parents and nephew were mesmerized by the electricity crackling in the air, the raw strength of the athletes assembling on the shore of Mirror Lake, the dizzying blend of anxiety, excitement and anticipation. Later they rode with me as I put three hundred frenetic miles on the rental car circumnavigating the course and trying to intercept Cherie in as many spots as we could. They shared my exhilaration at the turnaround of the first bike loop because her time was so much better than she'd predicted, groaned in dismay as she appeared alarmingly late on the second loop, cheered themselves hoarse as though the sound might speed her through the bike-to-run transition, and ran through an entire roll of film to try to capture forever the singular moment in which she brushed past them on the run only an arm's length away.
Only later did the onlookers begin to discover, as the athletes already had, the almost supernatural phenomenon of the seemingly benign bike course metamorphosing into a snarling beast on the second loop. Even those racers who'd ridden parts of the course for practice were badly shaken as their jellified legs and searing lungs howled in protest during that traumatizing replay, and negative splits were as rare as personal bests would be on that cunningly deceptive course. During the run that followed, many of those who touched a genuine Olympic gold medal placed near the turnaround for luck assumed it had revitalizing powers they would have scoffed at under normal circumstances.
I think my family may have been somewhat troubled by the depth of punishment an Ironman entails, but they forgot it quickly when confronted later that afternoon by the breathtaking sight of their 55-year old daughter-in-law gracefully streaking into the Olympic stadium to a first-place finish in her age group, a loopy smile planted on her face while many around her could only grimace. That she'd missed her target time by about twenty minutes made for an uncomfortable moment initially, the four of us not yet having become fully aware of the toll the unforgiving course had taken on the entire field, but as results drifted in and what she'd accomplished started to make itself evident — her margin of victory over second place exceeded an hour and she'd posted her highest overall finishing position ever — I doubt very much if Cherie's joy could possibly have surpassed theirs.
They no longer ask me how long she's going to keep this up.