iron man

So there was a 2 hour documentary on tv today following various stories of people who participated in the 2010 Iron Man in Hawaii. It was really amazing stuff. It of course followed some of those elite athletes who won and were really competitive in the race. But it wasn't the stories of those guys that I enjoyed watching.

I really loved hearing about all the "normal" or "average-joe" people that entered the race. Mainly because those are the ones that we can actually relate to. Racing isn't their career, it's just something they really want to do. There's a few stories about a guy who survived cancer, another one who had a heart transplant, a hard working mother of 4, and my personal favorite Lew Hollander who completed his 21st Iron Man last year. He's quite a sight to behold, because he's got the greatest mentality of keep on trucking even if he's 80. I met one of those at the sprint triathlon I did this past May, which leads me to believe that that's the mentality of their generation.

They did a great job at the end, especially, showing all the normal people who were finishing around the midnight cut off point. There's something about seeing those people push through all that pain and insane 16-17 hours of swimming/biking/running. Even though I know that I'll probably never be able to do something like that it's cool to think about it.