My Dad passed away on September 4, 2023, as I wrote a little bit about in last year’s BFC post. But sometime after that, earlier in 2024 I suppose, I started thinking that I would do an Ironman to honor and commemorate his life. He was an Ironman, with over 20 IM finishes all over the world. In fact, I was able to watch him race in Lake Placid, Western Australia, and in Kona in 2012, where the photo above was taken.

When I was 12 years old I watched Julie Moss crawl across the finish line and told myself someday I’d do an Ironman. And while I did a few triathlons in the mid 90s and even early 2000’s, I soon discovered Adventure Racing, and drifted away from the sport. And eventually found Ultra Running, and never made my way back to triathlons.

But this was my chance to do it one time — in my own way. I first searched around for off road Iron Distance events, and only found one, but the location and timing of that didn’t work out. So I started thinking about doing my own solo / unsupported / non-event Ironman, and I came up with a plan… We’ve spent the last couple Labor Days at Lake Tillery, and I was able to work it out with the support of my brother-in-law and father-in-law to go a day early, to have them support me in the boat.

I was up around 5:30 – 6:00 and we were in the boat heading up river around 6:45 for a 7:00 am start. No one was on the water, and it was beautiful.

I figured I’d be in the water around 80-90 minutes, and that’s exactly what it was. I had hoped for a little current in the river or draft of the boat to speed me up, but no luck!

A change of clothes and some food, and it was off on the bike. I had a roughly 50-52 mile loop to start, so that I could come back to the house and eat and resupply food and water. The 2nd loop got really really hot (93F!) and I finally called Kelly who was driving over for the weekend, and asked her to bring a couple bottles of ice water so I could dump them over me and try to bring my body temp down. After that, I met Kelly a few miles away to ride about 10 miles of gravel — while I had originally thought to do a lot of the “event” on gravel, in the end I opted for a lot more pavement so I wouldn’t be out there 24 hours or more!

(I blame the RD on the slightly short distance — but in reality the addition of the gravel ride as well as some looping back and forth, and I’m guessing I was less than 2 miles off!)

On to the run. I had plotted a course from the house up into Uwharrie where I’d hit the same trail I’ve run the 40 mile race on ten times. This would have been difficult on a few fronts — water was so low that filtering would have been difficult, so I would have needed water support twice, and I was trying not to be a burden on the family. I still set out with that plan in mind, but then a crazy rain, wind, and lightening storm hit about 2 miles in to the run! Normally I wouldn’t be too bothered by that, but the trees bending over the road and the lightening finally forced me to seek shelter. Luckily, there as a “strip mall” style church I was near, though just a single building:

I sat on that bench for maybe 10 minutes before I thought “with this awning, I can probably go back and forth.” And each length, the GPS picked up 0.01 miles! And you better believe I took advantage of that — for about 40 minutes while waiting for the storm to settle down, I went back and forth and covered nearly 2 miles:

Once the storm calmed down, it was getting dark, and River Road was pretty busy with people coming in for the weekend. And visibility was bad with it still raining and foggy. I’d have to go a couple more miles on that road with all the traffic, and then need water support. So I opted to go back to the neighborhood which is relatively small, but I thought I could get a 2-3 mile loop in. That worked just a couple times before I got blocked out of the neighborhood by an aggressive dog! I did another mile back and forth just in the beginning of the neighborhood before I finally pulled out my mace, found a big stick, and started yelling at the dog. With the rain it was foggy and misty and I couldn’t really see it, but the barking backed off and I was eventually able to get by. But now I had 10 more miles to go and was down to running 1/3 mile on 3 different roads, going back to the house every 2.5 miles to get water and/or fuel.

Thank goodness Kelly and Riley came out for the last two hours, or I might not have finished. But I persevered and did finally get it done!

Here’s that 3 way intersection I hit oh so many times!! Oh, and by the way, this is a very hilly area as you can see – 2500′ of climb!

Again I blame the RD here for showing 25.2 miles. But in reality with the amount of turning back and forth, this is another time I’m gong to say the GPS would likely be short. 🙂

I finished up around mid-night. I estimate I spent at least an hour “in transition” (if not 90 minutes!) making my own food and filling my own bottles, etc. And it was never really about time, it was wanting to do something my Dad had done so many times.

Next morning I was able to put on his Kona finishers hoodie:

I’m pretty sure I’m one and done for Iron Distance events, though I do love to swim, and have come to enjoy the gravel bike. Not so much on pavement with traffic, though… And while I was training, YouTube some how figured it out and kept showing me all kinds of documentaries about extreme events like the NorseMan… So you never know!

But for me, doing this event in honor of my Dad’s life was important to me, and I’m glad I was able to get it done.