Full Ironman

Late on Sunday afternoon when everyone else is watching something else, NBC ran a 2 hour slickly edited and produced show on the Kona ironman competition. Like every year, I am captivated by the insane physical accomplishment this represents. The special cuts between the leaders for the men and women and half a dozen human interest stories. This year the human interest stories included a guy who had been a convicted felon and addict and used training for the ironman to turn his life around, an elite woman athlete who had stress fractured her foot two weeks before and was walking the marathon portion with her foot in a boot cast, a 76 guy who was doing the race with his daughter, and a 66 year old grandmother who was grinding it out to try to finish before the end of the 17 hour deadline for "official" finishers. The leaders at superhuman paces, the heat rose, winners finished,the sun set, and the stragglers crossed the finish line with looks of triumph and near collapse. And eventually the 66 year old grand ma crossed the finish line with 48 seconds before the midnight deadline to receive a hug from the woman's champ who had returned to greet the last group of finishers. As they said in Jerry McGuire, they had me two hours earlier at "Hello, this is the 2010 Ironman World Championships..."