A look inside three-time Ironman world champion Craig Alexander’s now famous heat experiments.

This story was originally published in the November/December, 2010, edition of Inside Triathlon magazine, before Alexander placed fourth at the 2010 Ironman world championships. It has been edited for web publication.

Despite Craig “Crowie” Alexander’s second-place finish at the 2007 Ironman World Championship and his back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009, by his own estimation, he has never been the athlete that the Kona field has specifically gunned for. Perhaps this is because of his unintimidating 5-foot-9-inch frame, his relatively recent emergence to the top of the triathlon heap, or his reluctance to make bold predictions in the media. Whatever the reason, his competitors have never designed their race strategies around him, and some believe this has enabled Alexander’s considerable success at Kona year after year.

But this year is different. Alexander’s back-to-back Kona wins have put a bull’s-eye squarely on him, and as a result he’s more vulnerable than ever. This year, his competitors will attempt to exploit his one perceived weakness: the bike. In fact, strong cyclists such as Chris “Macca” McCormack have made several public pleas to other athletes to attack on the bike—all with the hopes of coming into T2 far enough ahead of Alexander to make his lethal run a nonfactor.

To combat this attack, Alexander has turned to a race preparation strategy made famous by Lance Armstrong: meticulous planning. By fanatically studying Tour de France routes, lactate levels, wind tunnel data and any number of other pieces of information, the seven-time Tour winner proved that an endurance athlete can gain a significant advantage over equally talented competition by measuring the details that the others leave to chance. In this same vein, Alexander is studying how his body reacts to the conditions he will face on the Big Island, which has a reputation for wilting even the world’s fittest athletes with its combination of humidity, wind, sun and heat radiating off congealed lava.

PHOTOS: Exclusive Look At Craig Alexander’s Kona Camp

Photo: Xterra

Triathlete and Inside Triathlon editors got to chat with Lance Armstrong on the heels of the announcement that he’ll be racing a full season of Ironman 70.3 events, as well as Ironman France. Today the Lance Armstrong Foundation also announced a new partnership with Ironman to raise more than $1 million for people affected by cancer.

Excerpts from our conversation:

On his expectations:
I don’t think it would be prudent for me to have huge ambitions and huge goals in terms of performance. I just need to go in and feel my way through it this weekend [at Ironman Panama 70.3] and then have about 6 or 7 weeks to tweak things if I need to and then do it again in Texas [at Ironman Texas 70.3 in Galveston].

On his ride:
Trek Speed Concept. It’s just your regular Speed Concept disc wheel and probably a 7.0 [Bontrager Aeolus D3 7.0] in the front.

On his training partners:
I swim and run with a lot [of the Austin elite athletes, including pro triathlete James Bonney]. I tend to ride alone, but in the last week I’ve ridden with the Bontrager-Livestrong development team. I swim almost every day with James [Bonney], Brandon Marsh, Amy Marsh… and a bunch of former UT swimmers. A couple days I’ll run with a group of runners and triathletes. There was a track workout Tuesday that Patrick Evoe was at. At Thursday morning runs there’s [pro triathlete] Kelly Williamson, Derek Williamson, David Fuentes (who’s a fast runner), James and Patrick from time to time. The Marshes were there today. You get some of the local talent out. …Jimmy Riccitello is helping with mentoring. It’s an exciting project but also daunting. There’s a lot of stuff that I’ve either completely forgotten or has changed. It’s helpful for me to get a sense of what’s going on currently, whether it’s equipment, whether it’s training, whether it’s the competition…I ask him a lot of those questions. I had a long dialogue with Greg Welch yesterday, just getting background on people, which is always helpful if I’m trying to be conservative in the races I need to know my place and where I fit in.

On doing his first full Ironman distance race:
I’m most worried about anything run related… It’s the [sport] I’ve been away from the longest…adding volume, adding intensity—that’s probably the thing that worries me the most. The one thing that could derail all of this is if you had a nagging injury from running that you just couldn’t get over. I don’t care what anybody says; the run is the most important part of this thing. It comes last and it ends with a marathon. I told someone the other day, “In golf you have your drives, your short game and your putting, and they say, “you drive for show and you put for dough,” but it seems to me in triathlon you ‘ride for show and you run for dough.’ I’ve got to get that right otherwise I’ll be a middle of the packer.

On what’s made the difference for him staying injury free:
I’m a little lucky in the sense that I have a full staff of people around to help, which is maybe not realistic for most people, but basically I have a fulltime person with me everyday that does physical therapy, massage, gets after any problem as soon as it starts. That’s the stuff that I’ve been blessed to have around me in terms of a team. Stuff like plantar fasciitis, you can go on any running blog and see the simple steps that people take, whether it’s the sock or the boot, never walking around barefoot, constantly stretching, the roller or golf ball or tennis ball under your foot—anything you’ve ever read about that injury I did. It seems to have worked for me so far.

On his running:
Jimmy [Riccitello] and I communicate back and forth and prepare a comprehensive training program for all three sports. I think it’s been helpful for me to do these group runs—to go out and run with the likes of Patrick Evoe…or pure marathoners like David Fuentes…essentially they’re like races at the end. Every man for himself and that’s really helped. And then just run repetition—certain days running twice a day and just staying on it…you have to go out and be religious about certain things, including very long runs, which I’ve never done in the past. The final thing about running, which is important in this sport, is body weight…[when you] get to the end of a five- or six-hour effort and start a marathon …every pound at that point matters…makes a huge difference. As my running has ramped up, my body weight has come down, which has helped everything.

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Triathlete.com: Are you enjoying your off-season so far?

Linsey Corbin: Very much so. Last year I didn’t take enough of an off-season. I didn’t take it seriously and I learned from my mistakes. It’s been fun. In November I really enjoyed time with my family and enjoyed being an aunt, since my sister had just had a baby. In December I really enjoyed Montana. I tried to spend time in the snow and mountains with no training at all. I actually didn’t ride a bike for the whole month of December. In January we came out to Tucson and I’ve been getting in lots of base miles. I’m just getting my fitness under my legs and getting used to some new bikes. Last year I did Pucon and I didn’t give myself a break. I did Ironman Arizona and started training again pretty much right away and got injured in May. I wanted to change that this year. It’s been nice to relax and not have the stress of training.

Triathlete.com: What’s the winter training scene in Tucson like?

Corbin: I’ve been coming back and forth to Tucson. Last year we came for two months and this year we came for three. The weather has been amazing. It’s basically guaranteed that you can ride your bike outside everyday. There’s a great group of people out here. You can easily train on your own or mix it up with other pro triathletes. I also have friends from Montana down here at the Cycling House. It’s a good balance down here.

PHOTOS: Linsey Corbin Gets Fit To Her Speed Concept At Retul

Triathlete.com: Tell me about the choice to transition to Trek?

Corbin: The end of last year I started to look at other opportunities because my Scott contract was up. I’ve always had my eye on Trek. You look at the fastest riders in our sport and see what they’re doing and a lot of them are riding Trek. Trek was the first bike I rode. We approached them and the more I learned, the more I liked the idea. I spent December talking to them and went out for a visit and came to the conclusion that it would be a good fit.

Triathlete.com: You visited the guys at Retul (see photos here) in Boulder yesterday. Did you make any significant adjustments to your fit?

Corbin: Obviously the bike feels a lot different. The biggest change we made was on my saddle. Last year I was riding with my saddle too low. I was losing power at the bottom of my pedal stroke. I also had tightness in my right hip, which is where my injury came from. We also changed my position in the aerobars. Overall being fit to a different bike was the biggest change.

Triathlete.com: What will be your first big race of the year?

Corbin: I’m going to be racing Ironman 70.3 San Juan in March.

Triathlete.com: It looks like you have Ironman Austria on your schedule for 2012. Why Austria?

Corbin: I’ve done a lot of North American Ironmans. They are awesome, but I wanted to try something out of my comfort zone. I’ve never been to Europe before. There’s no time like the present. I might as well take the bull by the horns. I’m going to race Arizona at the end of the year and hopefully I’ll be back at Hawaii again. Between those two I’ll have a good balance of racing in North America. I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about racing in Europe, and this race has been on my bucket list. I figured I might as well give it a go.

Triathlete.com: You’ve raced at the Ironman World Championship six times now. How will you approach the build into this year’s race?

Corbin: I need to keep improving on the swim. I had my personal worst swim in 2011. It’s tough because you are working overtime if you come out of the swim behind. My pool times are fast. My pool times are where they should be. I’ve also learned you can’t live and die by Kona. I’ve put less pressure on that race. I’m going to go back to loving racing and racing a lot. Racing where I want takes away the pressure of having an “A” race. That’s not to say I don’t want to win Kona. I just want to focus on on other goals I have also. Hopefully it will lead to success in Kona. I also want to continue focusing on becoming a stronger cyclist. It’s already my strength and I’d like to keep building on it.

Triathlete.com: Obviously Chrissie Wellington won’t be on the start line in Kona this year. As a top female pro on the Ironman scene, what do you think of her decision?

Corbin: I can’t say that I’m shocked. She has taken a different career path than everyone else by winning every Ironman she’s done. I can understand her wanting to take a break or step away while she’s got a great legacy. I can see where she’s coming from. I think she’s caused all of us to step up our game. Everyone is producing stronger results than they were in the past. She set a bar for us and we’ll be chasing that bar whether she’s racing or not. It’s going to make the race more exciting. There’s going to be a new Ironman world champion next year. We know it’s going to be a race. Look at women like Mirinda and Julie, who are willing to take more of a risk to get the win.

Triathlete.com: You’ve finished second at Ironman Arizona three years in a row. Is it a goal of yours to win that race?

Corbin: Definitely. The first time I raced there it was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t have a good race in Kona so I’ll go there.’ I never thought I’d have a tie to Ironman Arizona, but I’ve found that I really love that race. I’m going to keep going back until I get the win. I don’t take no for an answer. For sure Arizona is on the list for this year.

Rhymes with diamonds: It doesn’t really bother me when people mispronounce my name, but I know my grandpa would be mad if he heard them. My friends want me to adopt the nickname “Jeff Diamond Symonds” so people will get it right.

Sin City dash: I was in Vegas once before the world championship—on a four-hour layover. I decided to run from the airport to the Strip. Being from Penticton you just don’t get to see the big buildings and stuff. Plus I figured one guy had to be the worst dressed in Vegas that day. With run shorts, black compression socks and a souvenir T-shirt from “The Hangover” that I bought at the airport—why not me?

1:13:33: Everyone kept saying, “Where the hell did that come from?” But I’ve always had the good run—it’s just being able to be there after the bike to use it. Last year I did Oceanside 70.3. Michael Raelert, Matt Reed, Richie Cunningham, Tim O’Donnell and Rasmus Henning were all there, and I had the fastest run split. But getting third in Vegas was a surprise to me, too. I definitely don’t think people should have been thinking about me before the race. My mom didn’t even pick me in the top three.

Domestic disturbance: My mom and my girlfriend were home watching the race on Ironmanlive.com. They were cheering so loud that the neighbors called to ask if they were OK.

Move over, Hugh Hefner: After the race, someone asked me if being third in the world changed anything with the ladies. I told him in Vegas there were literally guys handing me cards of girls who wanted to meet me.

Bringing home the bacon: I usually work 25–28 hours a week at the Bike Barn. The pro would be that I like eating a lot. The con would be that I could spend that time training or recovering.

Yo, Adrian: Rocky’s the kind of guy everybody wants to be like. He’s this total underdog, hustling and stuff, but he gets a shot at the title. That’s what kind of attracted me to the sport of triathlon. Out there in Vegas, 1500 people had a shot at the title. I may not have got the win, but I’m the guy who works really hard part-time at the bike store, and I had that chance. It was pretty cool.

PHOTOS: Ironman World Championship 70.3

Mike Wolfe won USA Triathlon’s Winter Triathlon National Championship at Homestake Lodge in Butte, Mont., in January. Triathlete.com caught up with Wolfe, who is an Assistant U.S. Attorney by trade and an ultrarunner by choice, recently to see what went into his national title.

Triathlete.com: Congratulations on your win. How’d you discover winter triathlon and what made you get so involved with it?

Mike Wolfe: I’m actually not involved in it at all. This was my first race ever! I just jumped in it for fun, as the race is held really close to home, about an hour from Helena, MT., where I live.

Triathlete.com: For all of us who haven’t participated in a winter triathlon, can you give us a little information on what the sport is like and why we should catch the winter triathlon bug?

MW: It is something entirely fun and different to do in the winter. It is great—it incorporates skate skiing, and the added challenge of running and mountain biking on/in the snow.

Triathlete.com: What would you say the main differences are between summer triathlon and winter triathlon?

MW: I am not a triathlete, so I can’t speak to this very well.  However, having done just a little summer triathlon, I can say that the transitions from run to bike, then to ski, are WAY easier than transitioning from swim-bike-run!

PHOTOS: 2012 USA Triathlon Winter National Championships

Triathlete.com: How are you going to prepare for the world championships in Jämijärvi, Finland, if you decide to go?

MW: Unfortunately, with work I won’t be able to go on such short notice. If I were going, I would focus on short intensity and interval workouts, with lots of hill repeats. The distances are so short—5km, 10km, 5km—it is all about speed and power. I would run and mountain bike a lot in snowy/tough conditions to prepare.

Triathlete.com: What kind of training is required to be good at winter triathlon?

MW: Power, because the races are so short.  And, your engine has to be tuned up for run, bike and ski. I think lots of strength training and intensity workouts are key.

Triathlete.com: Could you give us a typical training week for you?

MW: I mainly run and rarely mountain bike or ski.  I am an ultrarunner by discipline.  However, I do try to nordic ski a lot in winter. And I mountain bike for fun in my off-seasons. A typical training week is between 18 to 25 hours of running, depending upon the season. I average about 120 to 160 miles per week.

Triathlete.com: Do you have any tips for staying warm when you’re mountain biking or running out in the snow?

MW: Wear a Buff around your neck and face. Wear neoprene booties over your mountain bike shoes!

Triathlete.com: In one sentence, what’s your favorite thing about winter triathlon?

MW: The diversity of all three disciplines in quick succession—I just found it to be plain fun!

Triathlete.com: What do you do for a living and how do you balance this with your training?

MW: I am an attorney. I am a federal prosecutor (my title is Assistant U.S. Attorney), working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Montana. Balance?? Serious discipline, serious time management, and sacrificing other things in life. Plain and simple. You either do it, or you don’t.

I never planned on racing a triathlon on Nevis Island, but how could I say no with Winston Crooke’s smile? My wife and I had come to his store looking to rent bikes and were greeted by Crooke—a tall, thin, athletic man with dreadlocks and a surprising British accent (he was raised in the U.K.). “We have a little local triathlon on Saturday if you want to race,” Winston said, pointing to a sign listing the monthly winter races of the FLY (Forever Live Young) Miniseries that lead up to the island’s major triathlon, TriStar Nevis (won in April last year by none other than Chris McCormack).

Nevis is the smaller island of the two-island federation of St. Kitts-Nevis, just southeast of Puerto Rico. Its small airport receives some direct flights, but it’s easy and significantly cheaper to fly into St. Kitts on a major airline (American Airlines offers daily flights) and then take one of the frequent boat ferries to Nevis.

Nevis offers a variety of lodging options, from a recently renovated five-star Four Seasons resort to private rental homes. The remains of the sugarcane plantations that drove the island’s economy during its early British colonial days are now home to upscale hotels including beachfront Nisbet Plantation and mountainside Golden Rock Inn.

The island, which surrounds the often fog-covered mountain peak of an inactive volcano, is only 7 miles long and 5 miles wide, with a major 21-mile road that goes around its perimeter. Driving is on the left side on this former British colony, and though the road is narrow and the rules of traffic a bit improvisational, most island drivers are accustomed to watching the roads carefully for everything from bands of green vervet monkeys to sheep to the wild donkeys that roam the island, so cyclists are just part of the mix.

Winston Crooke’s bike shop, Wheel World (Bikenevis.com) is the primary bike rental option on the island and it’s far better than your typical beachside bike rental shop. Remember to bring your cycling shoes because Crooke not only offers the typical bike rental platform pedals with cages, but can also set up a bike with Look or Shimano SPD pedals. Crooke and Reggie Douglass, a local triathlete known as the “Flying Rastaman” who qualified for the Ironman World Championship 70.3, lead regular road and mountain bike tours.

If you want to get in some serious winter triathlon training, Nevis has two ITU-certified triathlon coaches—Crooke and James Weekes. Training can be arranged through Crooke’s Wheel World bike shop. One of the incredible things on Nevis is the number of young triathletes Crooke and Weekes are training. Expect to see some of these kids one day gracing the stage at Ironman 70.3 St. Croix and beyond.

Nevis has several beaches, mostly associated with various resorts, but even if you are not staying at the resort, you’re usually welcome to access the beach, especially if you pay your dues at the bar. Nisbet Beach offers the whitest sands and the best water for swimming undisturbed by boats.

After a swim or bike ride, relax at one of the island’s many excellent restaurants. Most of the resorts have good restaurants, but Golden Rock Inn stood out. The broiled lobster tail accompanied with mashed plantains made us pause over every bite. There are several excellent restaurants outside of the resorts that any visitor should certainly check out. Sunshine’s is on Pinney’s Beach and offers a great open-air dining experience. The lobster sandwich is a filling meal after a swim and with a side of conch fritters could easily feed two. Sunshine’s menu changes regularly with what’s just come in from the local docks. The Killer Bee, Sunshine’s version of rum punch, is a favorite. In Charlestown, the capital city, you can stop at the Jamaican Bakery to get a roti, a local favorite that resembles a savory stuffed crêpe.

In those dark days of winter, when the whir of the bike trainer and treadmill are all too familiar, Nevis is a welcome break to up your vitamin D and get a solid start to your season. “An athlete can come to Nevis and indulge themselves in their sport without distractions,” Crooke says.

On our last full day in Nevis, while temperatures were still below freezing back home, I raced my first triathlon of the year. There were only a handful of us, 20 or so, mostly locals, several of them the high-school-age kids Crooke is training. But there were also some other tourists, with Ironman T-shirts and new beach tans, who I’m sure were convinced as I was that a triathlon on a beautiful island, on a rented bike, with a group of friendly people, can be a wonderful way to start the season.

If you want …

A rainforest hike Try “The Source” trail. Named for the island’s freshwater spring, the trailhead starts at Golden Rock Inn. Expect to see monkeys and to climb an ancient rusty ladder. Golden-rock.com

A beach-side massage Go to the Four Seasons Spa. A variety of massage therapies and other spa treatments are available. Fourseasons.com/nevis/spa

An introduction to scuba Go with Ellis Chaderton’s crew to get a taste of reef life and a first-time scuba experience without having to go through a pool practice. Experienced divers can also get a great dive with sea turtles and rays abounding. Scubanevis.com

Island-style pizza Eat at Mem’s. This is a local place, not visited by many tourists, but it has some of the best pizza we’ve ever had. Toppings range from lobster to pinneapple and ham (Island Style). (869) 469-1390

To visit Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace Tour the Hamilton estate. This Founding Father was born on Nevis, and the ruins of his family’s estate just outside Charlestown offer a wonderful view of the island. Nevis-nchs.org

Take in breathtaking gardens Visit the Botanical Gardens of Nevis. The gardens mix the skill of British horticulture with the wonders of a tropical ecosystem. Botanicalgardennevis.com

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For the past two years Swedish professional triathlete Lisa Norden has travelled to Kenya to participate in run training camps. The trips were instigated by her Australian coach, Darren Smith, who recognized that Kenya produces the best runners in the world and wanted to learn the secrets to their success directly from them. I asked Norden to name the most important thing she learned during her time there and she said—unexpectedly, I must say—that it was the importance of balance.

“When we got there we struggled to stay upright,” Norden said, citing the uneven dirt running surfaces as the reason. “The Kenyans don’t fall over. We put our feet in beautiful shoes with a lot of support, we run on asphalt roads, and we lose so much [balance]. You lose so much power when you don’t have that contact with the ground.”

Balance is extremely important in running, and balance is easy to take for granted as a runner. One of the reasons human beings can’t run until they’re two years old is that they lack the required balance. Think about it: When you run you’re either airborne or have just one foot on the ground at all times, and your center of gravity, or balance point, is continuously moving forward. Only half of the energy your body uses during running actually goes toward forward propulsion. The other half goes toward preventing yourself from falling down.

You need two things to avoid falling down each time your foot strikes the ground during running: stability and balance. They sound like synonyms but in this case they are not. Stability refers to a state of the body where little active balancing is required. It comes from the alignment of your body as your foot makes contact with the ground and the ability of the muscles whose job is to prevent your joints from collapsing on impact to do that job properly. Balance refers to the neuromuscular skill of activating the muscles and adjusting your body alignment to keep yourself upright. It comes from the ability to anticipate and react to challenges to the body’s postural equilibrium.

Running experts talk a lot about stability and how to improve it, but they don’t talk a lot about balance. Obviously, the two attributes are interdependent. The more stable you are, the less balance you need. By wearing the right shoes, getting your stride right, and strengthening your stabilizing muscles, you can increase your stability as a runner and thereby reduce the energy you have to put into maintaining your balance.

However, you cannot eliminate the need for balance, and most runners—or at least most Western runners—are underdeveloped in this skill, such that they actually waste energy on balancing themselves. One reason may be the one Lisa Norden pointed to: We get artificial stability from the smooth, paved roads we run on and the $125 shoes we run in. These factors act as crutches, almost literally, that enable us to get away with failing to fully develop our balancing skills. Whereas Kenya’s runners, who grow up running mostly barefoot on unstable surfaces, develop terrific balance and are thus able to devote more of their available energy to forward propulsion.

The essence of balance is, after all, relaxation. Consider the example of standing on a paddle board on the water. The first time you do it, you will pour tremendous amounts of energy into tensing muscles throughout your body in the effort to stay upright, because your body has not yet learned how to skillfully anticipate and react to challenges to your equilibrium in that environment. But after you’ve done it a bunch of times, not only will you have far more success in staying upright, but you will do so with a much smaller dedication of energy to the task. You will feel and be more relaxed on the board. Running is the same way. The better your balance becomes, the more relaxed you will run, and the faster you will be able to run with an equal dedication of energy to the overall task.

So, how do you improve your balance? Easy. Lisa Norden has already hinted at one way: Get off the roads occasionally and run on trails. Also do some barefoot running if you can. This will improve your balance while you run, without any need to perform “balance workouts” outside of running. You can also train your balance by incorporating equilibrium-challenging exercises into the strength-training sessions you’re already doing. For example, single-leg squats. Finally, you can add just one or two specific balance-training exercises to your existing strength workouts, such as standing on a wobble board.

That’s all there is to it.

Adam Bohach, 27, Clinton, Iowa

A high school science teacher, Bohach has a thing or two to teach his students about being a fast triathlete. He wrapped up his final amateur season ranked first among men ages 25-29 by USA Triathlon (USAT), scooping up big wins at the Hy-Vee 5150 U.S. Championships in September and topping his age group at Ironman Racine 70.3 (his 4:12:06 finish was good enough for ninth overall, beating several pros). Bohach is also an accomplished runner, clocking 2:26:25 at Grandma’s Marathon in June and a 25:45 8K on the roads in 2010. Bohach, a biology major while at Luther College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is clearly a student of the sport: His senior project involved VO2, lactic acid, and cortisol levels in endurance trained athletes, for which he was awarded an NCAA post-graduate scholarship.

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The fastest American amateur at the Ford Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii last October, (9:51:17) Piampiano made her pro debut one month later at Ironman Cozumel, finishing seventh (9:57:58). The former investment banker for HSBC Securities in New York City now lives and trains in Los Angeles and will next race in April’s Ironman 70.3 Texas in Galveston and also has three Ironmans (Texas,  Coeur D’Alene and Lake Placid) penciled in her schedule. “Last year I was able to consistently place as either the top or one of the top overall amateurs at every race,” she says. “It was a huge accomplishment for me, but I am not ready to stop there.”

Photo: Matt Harbicht

The (Deeply Determined, Exceptionally Sensitive, Sometimes Insecure and Downright Huge) Heart of a Champion

This story was originally published in the September/October, 2011 issue of Inside Triathlon magazine, before Wellington went on to win her fourth Ironman world title in stunning fashion. It was the first in-depth profile of Wellington—one where a writer uses long interviews with friends and family to paint a picture of who Wellington is outside of sport—ever published. She was featured on the cover with a crown as the Queen of Ironman.

PHOTOS: Chrissie Wellington’s Inside Triathlon Photo Shoot

We all know Chrissie Wellington as a three-time Ironman world champion, the iron-distance world record holder (8:18:13), the Ironman world record holder (8:33:56) and the course record holder in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (8:54:02). But few of us know who Wellington is as a person. Her fame has come so fast and furiously, getting to know the girl behind the glory has taken a backseat to acknowledging her many achievements. In fact, Wellington has never been the subject of an in-depth magazine profile.

Recently, Wellington, who is originally from Norfolk, England, granted me access to a number of her closest acquaintances, and I shared a marathon heart-to-heart session with the icon herself, helping me to uncover the off-course, off-camera Chrissie. And I can attest, while she’s as obsessively driven and outrageously successful in other aspects of her life as she is in triathlon, she’s also down-to-earth, at times uncertain and even insecure.

Walk into the home that Wellington rents with her boyfriend and fellow pro, Tom Lowe, on Boulder, Colo.’s north side and the first thing you’ll notice is the fireplace mantel. On it resides a collection of six greeting cards, inspirational missives given to Wellington by caring confidantes at various pivotal points in her life. One gives reassurance for her 2007 decision to quit a secure government job and make the precarious leap to professional sports. Another, a fierce “You showed them!” following Kona 2007, refers to the teammates who shunned Wellington when she first joined Brett Sutton’s TeamTBB training squad. Wellington carries the cards everywhere she travels.

Wellington’s friend and family relationships are utterly core to her being, and she expends massive amounts of time and energy nurturing her connections around the globe.

“As a result of living in so many cities in the U.K. and traveling to numerous countries, Chrissie has met countless people,” said her mother, Lin Wellington. “It never ceases to amaze us how she manages to keep in touch.”

The three-time world champion is far more concerned with the goings on in her friends’ lives than in spouting off about her own.

“When you see Chrissie—and sometimes it drives me slightly mad—she bombards you with questions about you,” said Naomi Flood, Wellington’s best mate from graduate school at the University of Manchester. “She’s not one of these people who wants to talk endlessly about herself.”

Matthew Wellington, Chrissie’s younger brother, agrees: “Pretentiousness and my sister are like chalk and cheese. It just doesn’t happen—ever.”

Georgina Cashmore, a former co-worker of Wellington’s and one of her dearest friends to this day, summed up her pal’s sincerity by saying, “Chrissie will always make space for you in her life. If she says she will be there, she will be there. If she can’t be there, she will tell you she can’t. She will protect me beyond all else. She rightly expects the same in return and knows that no matter what I will always love, support and ground her. It is a no-fuss friendship—we tell each other what we think even if it’s not what the other wants to hear. She farts—I tell her it stinks.”

I repeated Cashmore’s words to Wellington, and her eyes welled up (despite a burst of laughter).

“That’s touching to me more than anything,” she said, “because it means I’m doing something right. [It’s] sort of a vindication of who I am—that I’m valued as a friend, not just as a sporting icon.”

In a way, she hoards love and support; she holds it close, almost in fear it might slip away.

“Chrissie doesn’t do second in anything—not as a friend, a daughter, at work, in training or in competition,” Cashmore said. “She takes second place extremely personally and it rocks her to the core to feel that she has failed in any part of her life. Chrissie fears how her actions will be interpreted or how they will impact others, she fears not being able to be true to herself and true to others, but most of all she fears being away from those she loves.”

The love Wellington cherishes is a two-way street, however, even with those she hasn’t met.

“Letters and e-mails and messages—I save them all. I save every single message that I get to my website,” she said. “Because it’s important.”

She replies to fans personally as often as possible.

Wellington’s heart stretches even wider when it comes to the charitable causes she supports—groups such as the Blazeman Foundation for ALS, a nonprofit that seeks to find a cure for the fatal disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (or Lou Gehrig’s disease) that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord; the KIDS Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to childhood injury prevention and recovery; and GoTRIbal, which seeks to use endurance sports to empower women.

Wellington’s belief in charity is something she harbored as a young girl.

“In 1986 [at the age of 9] Chrissie was watching a program on TV that explained the plight of some people in Africa who needed urgent medical attention,” said Lin Wellington. “Without hesitation, Chrissie jumped up off her chair and announced that she was going to organize a ‘bring and buy sale’ in our village, to raise money for those afflicted. The result was that over 300 pounds was raised, which in those days was quite a lot of money.”

The following year, she wrote a variation of the theater production “Aladdin” and then persuaded her classmates to perform the piece before a packed schoolhouse, announcing to the audience that it was a benefit for victims of the famine in Ethiopia. She again raised a significant sum.

“My dream, even as a kid, was to make a difference in the world,” Wellington said. “I remember being so disturbed by the images of famine. I would just get incredibly saddened by inequality and suffering. I try to say this in interviews now and I think it kind of sounds trite, but I want my legacy to be more than any world record. Being a role model for kids, being quite vocal about development and advocating for charities—it’s not to be a goody two-shoes. It’s not to pull a media stunt. It’s because sport has power and as sports people we have a platform. That’s really my motivational force.”

Early on Matthew Wellington noticed his sister’s desire to make a mark on the world: “She could have been a physicist on the Hadron Collider if she wanted. She could have been a hedge fund manager making 4 million a year. But instead she worked for the government and for an NGO in Nepal.”

Indeed, Wellington’s original plan was to be a lawyer, but a two-year stint traveling abroad opened her eyes to a new world, one in which she felt compelled to champion the underprivileged. She received her master’s degree in development studies from Manchester, then landed a U.K. government job working for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that combined her academic aptitude with her natural public-speaking savvy. While at DEFRA, Wellington represented the U.K. at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, wrote and advised on ministerial speeches for British dignitaries including Prime Minister Tony Blair and DEFRA Secretary of State Margaret Beckett, and spearheaded negotiations for the U.K.’s environmental reconstruction policy in Iraq.

“What’s weird about my life now,” Wellington said, “is I had this whole life beforehand that nobody really knows about. I suppose everyone does—but it’s not like I was Macca [Chris McCormack], growing up dreaming of racing Ironman. I didn’t watch Ironman Hawaii on TV. I didn’t know it existed. I had never heard of it.”

Instead, her intensity and passion were channeled first into academics and then into her professional life. Eventually, this segued into athletics.

“I traveled through Africa, Asia and Australia. In Sydney, I started to feel pretty unhealthy from all the eating and drinking I had done. I remember not wanting to run because I’d go bright red, so I just started walking,” she reminisced. “Then I entered the City to Surf 14K race. I was very nervous; I’d done no training. In my diary I wrote, ‘This is going to be torture. I’m going to go bright red. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish.’ It was 14K. I did it in 1:19 [a little over 9-minute-per-mile pace] and I was exhilarated! So when I got back for grad school I ran and swam to become healthier. Being an obsessive-compulsive person, that grew quite quickly into exercising every day.”

Best mate Flood laughs when she remembers Wellington’s initial foray into running: “She just kept running. It was a bit like Forrest Gump. It wasn’t necessarily healthy. She didn’t have good trainers. Her feet were cut to bits. The blisters were phenomenal. It was really horrible at one point, but she wouldn’t stop running. It was kind of her way of focusing on something.”

Following her time at Manchester, Wellington lived and worked in London, where she ran the London Marathon as a fundraising event and dabbled in short-course triathlon.

Tammy Nelson, a friend with whom Wellington shared an internship selling charity Christmas cards, recalled, “She did the marathon in 2002. She did really well—she came in the top 100 women [83rd, in a time of 3:08:17, to be exact], which was pretty good considering she was just doing it for fun and for charity. It was at that point I realized she must actually be pretty good at sport.”

Disillusioned with high-level government bureaucracy and desiring more hands-on development experience, Wellington took a sabbatical to work in Nepal, where she helped to improve water and sanitation conditions. She also improved her own endurance.

“There’s a town called Pokhara, 200K from Kathmandu [Nepal]. We wanted to go there for New Year’s Eve, so we mountain biked,” she said. “It was me, the Nepali mountain bike champion and a few friends. We set off at 7 in the morning, going and going and going, on these shit roads, carrying our rucksacks. It’s friggin’ not flat. But I would not give in. In the end it was only me and the Nepali mountain bike champ—everyone else got on the bus. We arrived, had a shower and partied all night long. That was quite epic.”

Her brother believes that she found her way into professional triathlon simply because she loved running and riding her bike.

“I reckon some Ironman athletes train from when they’re 12, 13 years old. Christine [he eschews her well-known nickname] was mountain biking through the Himalayas only five or six years ago,” he said. “She didn’t even know she was training for Ironman. If there is ever a film written about Christine, it will be a hybrid of ‘Rocky’ and ‘The Motorcycle Diaries.’ ‘Rocky’ because from early on she did this without money, without sponsorship, without huge amounts of specific training. Rocky came from nothing and trained in the woods lifting logs, whilst Christine biked across Nepal. And the analogy to the Che Guevara character in ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ is her freedom of spirit and her ambition to travel and see the world. And the two connected is brilliant.”

Eventually, the pull of competition proved irresistible, and after winning the overall title at the age-group world championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2006, Wellington gave herself a one-year window to succeed as a professional athlete. That was all the time her savings would allow. She sought the guidance of tough-love triathlon coach Brett Sutton, who, through his controversial school-of-hard-knocks approach, helped channel and calm the rookie’s overwrought nature.

“Brett treated me like shit when I arrived. Like absolute shit,” stated Wellington. “He went to great lengths to make me angry. He didn’t pay any attention. He welcomed the fact that all the other girls hated me, because I was a threat. I’ve spoken to Brett since then. He knew I had something special, so the way he approaches that is to not make that person feel special. He put me in a house with five guys and told them to steal my food, throw things, be boorish, turn the music up—just to toughen me up and make me into a friggin’ warrior. But I guess it worked.”

Photo: Kevin LaClaire

On Saturday, Sept. 25, two weeks before the 2011 Ironman World Championship, three-time winner Chrissie Wellington swam 5000 meters at Boulder Aquatic Masters with her coach—six-time Hawaii Ironman champion Dave Scott—in an adjacent lane. Scott’s sister, Jane, was coaching. According to Scott, Wellington was putting on the finishing touches of her best preparation yet for a 13th Ironman (she’s yet to finish an Ironman in any position but first), an enormous statement given that 11 weeks prior the 34-year-old Brit lowered her own world record to 8:18:13 at Challenge Roth. “She was very fit. It was a stellar preparation,” says Scott.

The next day Wellington went out with a group for her last long bike ride before Kona. While riding with her hands on the drops and into a turn she says she’d “taken millions of times” before, the front tire flatted and the wheel slid out from under her. Crashing to the pavement with her was Scott’s 20-year-old son Drew, who was preparing for his first appearance in Hawaii.

While on his own ride, Dave had seen the pack that his son and Wellington had gone off with. When he finished, a text message from Drew was waiting for him. “He’d texted me that they’d crashed and that Chrissie seemed OK.” But the sentence was punctuated with a question mark. The ensuing hours and ultimately the next 12 days would prove to be a physically and emotionally demanding test for Chrissie Wellington, the athlete, and Dave Scott, the coach—perhaps the most demanding tests ever within these roles for two inarguable legends in the sport. This test was made radioactive by the vivid memory that in 2010 Wellington made the most painful decision of her career in not starting the championship due to a
viral infection.

Although Wellington had suffered deep contusions to her hip and shoulder, and large swaths of road rash on her thigh and lower leg, X-rays showed no broken bones. “It was a big sigh of relief,” says Scott. “But I knew she was banged up badly. She was sore. And on Monday the soreness was worse. There was both physical and emotional trauma involved, partly because she knew she was the most fit she had ever been. I tried to help her maintain her confidence to get through this. Obviously we had to tweak her schedule.” Scott insisted to Wellington that she would have to resist any panicked desire to train when recovery was the critical issue. “‘You’re doing the wrong thing if you try and train through this,’” Scott recalls telling her. “‘Just let your body heal.’ There wasn’t any need to panic. She had to be diligent to the highest level possible.”

Wellington would later say that before the crash, “I was in the best shape of
my life.”

The day after the crash Wellington insisted on trying to do a workout on an elliptical trainer at the gym. Her body would have none of it. “She had an infection from the road rash and was taking antibiotics. She couldn’t bear any weight on her leg—it had swelled up and she ended up lying on a couch,” Scott says. “She was shivering.” Scott and Tom Lowe, Wellington’s boyfriend, carried her out of the gym to the car. “She was a wreck,” says Scott.

Wellington postponed her departure to Kona, arriving on Saturday one week before the race rather than the planned 10 days. Sponsors were contacted and her media schedule was pared down to a minimum.

“We took things day by day,” Scott says of race week. Although Scott and Wellington were buoyed when a test ride showed she would be able to bike on race day, it was during a 4K test swim on the race course that Wellington developed a sharp pain in her chest, and it became progressively worse later in the day. “Injuries from the crash were manifesting themselves into different issues,” Scott says. Wellington tried one final swim in a pool. After 1000 meters she gave up, later explaining that it “felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest.”

After Wellington left the pool her active release technique therapist, Mike Leahy, said it was time to go back to the hospital. X-rays were conducted to search for broken ribs and a CT scan was issued to check for the possibility of a pulmonary embolism. Both tests were negative, but doctors thought she’d torn a pectoral muscle. “I told them I thought they were wrong and wanted a second opinion,” Scott recalls saying, in part to dilute negative information that would only work to harm his athlete’s state of mind.

With just three days before the start cannon, Wellington’s race became all about the swim. The race plan had in essence boiled down to simply getting through the swim and then taking advantage of three facts: The Ironman is a long day, Wellington still had a tremendous reservoir of fitness to tap into, and she’s Chrissie Wellington, winner of 12 consecutive Ironman starts and three Ironman world championships.

Scott knew that originally Wellington would have come out of the water at the 54- or 55-minute mark, and calculated that the new situation would cost her three or four minutes. He watched the women exit, seeing the likes of Mirinda Carfrae, Julie Dibens and Rachel Joyce streaming away on their bikes as the clock continued to tick. “I was tracking all the women,” he says, admitting his concern at the time. “I knew she just had to get through the thing.” Wellington exited in 1:01, slower than Scott had anticipated. Wellington smiled as the crowd acknowledged her, elation that she would at least be able to finish the race.

Scott saw the smile. “I had talked to her about how much she feels she owes her fans while racing. She gives them so much during the race in smiling and waving to them. I told her that if this lifts her up and gives her energy, then smile. But I also told her this time around she was going to need every last oxygen molecule and to try to conserve as much as absolutely possible.”

Scott said this not only because of the injuries but also because of the competition. “We knew Mirinda was not going to be intimidated by Chrissie,” he says. “Mirinda was the world champion. She was going to do everything possible to deny Chrissie the victory. I have great admiration for Mirinda. Before the race I told her, ‘Let’s have a battle.’ My comments were genuine.”

In past victories at Kona and elsewhere, fans were used to seeing Wellington dominate the bike early and command the race through the run. In 2011 Wellington caught Carfrae only in the climb toward the turnaround in Hawi. In her 2010 win, Carfrae broke the run record with a 2:53:32 marathon, averaging 6:37 pace, running the final miles at sub-6:30 pace. In 2011, Wellington went into T2 22 minutes down on the leader, Dibens, and 10 minutes behind Joyce and Leanda Cave, and with the knowledge that the Ironman champion and course run record holder was stalking her.

Before the accident, Scott had worked with Wellington on erasing what he felt was her most serious vulnerability: the second half of her marathon. “This has been a huge weakness,” he says. “Chrissie will blast the first half of the run in 1:22 but come back with a 1:30.” In Roth, Scott saw what he wanted to see: fast, even splits, a 2:44 combining back-to-back 1:22 half-marathons.

Scott knew that the race dictates strategy and Wellington had to go hard early. But it wasn’t pretty. Despite running sub-6:25 pace in the opening miles of the run, she looked broken to Scott and everyone else watching. “It was an unsightly looking run,” Scott says. “Her left foot and glute weren’t firing. Her form was ghastly.” The smoothness they worked hard to polish was gone. “She was running through pure willpower.”

Scott watched as Wellington picked off rivals one by one to assume the lead by the entrance to the Energy Lab, the race boiling down to holding off Carfrae. “Mirinda was running steady and Chrissie started to fade. I watched the lead drop from 5:10 to 3:35,” he recalls. The previous two weeks of pain, healing, anxiety and the tightrope walk of getting to the starting line had finally caught up. “The emotional trauma had taken so much out of Chrissie,” Scott says. “Her body was finally starting to shut down. She just had to hang on.”

Carfrae was not having the best day either, reporting afterward that she struggled through the first half of the marathon. But as Wellington began to fade Carfrae poured it on with a 6:12 pace. It wasn’t enough. In fact at 2:52:41 Wellington stole the course run record from Carfrae, a record the 2011 champion would hold less than three minutes as Carfrae recorded a 2:52:09. But despite setbacks that came close to forcing Wellington not to start the Ironman World Championship a second year in a row, she had regained
her crown.

It was one of the greatest victories in the history of the Ironman. Since 2007, the year of Wellington’s first attempt at Kona and the first time she would routinely crush her competition, Wellington seemed to fly above the greater mythology that possesses the Hawaii Ironman—the idea that only through trial by fire can one develop the inner mettle it takes to even have a shot at the top five. Wellington, of course, is blessed with great physical and psychological talents—what she’s accomplished has not come easy even though she made it look that way.

Any questions of how Wellington will react when pressed have been answered: She’ll just go harder. “There are only a handful of champions who have that brand of innate inner calmness to prevail and dig so deep,” says her admiring coach.

When asked about the external pressures surrounding her career, Wellington says that no one puts more pressure on her than she does: “I feel pressure from the expectations fans have of me. I also have a desire to achieve great things to inspire and empower people. But ultimately I do this for me. I will never, ever, ever rest until I know I’ve given absolutely everything.”

RELATED: Chrissie Wellington To Take Break From Ironman

Photo: Jason Wise

In the past year Chris McCormack, Julie Dibens and Chrissie Wellington have announced they will take a step back from Ironman racing for various reasons. All were at the top of their careers and have emphasized the toll that Ironman training and racing takes on the body. The following story explains exactly what the body goes through over 140.6 miles of racing. This story originally appeared in the January/February, 2009 edition of Inside Triathlon magazine.

From the outside, swimming, cycling and running appear as movement. But from inside the triathlete’s body, swimming, cycling and running appear as an acceleration of time.

Blood gushes through veins and arteries like traffic through night highways in a time-lapse video. Within muscle cells, glucose and triglyceride molecules are tossed into the fiery furnace of mitochondria at a breakneck pace, as though someone has put a DVD of the process at rest on 4x fast forward. Armies of oxygen radicals punch holes in muscle cell membranes, causing a general deterioration that calls to mind those computer animations that show a person aging 20 years in 10 seconds.

Indeed, from an internal perspective, completing an Ironman is a bit like sitting on a sofa for 12 hours and aging two decades. In other words, the changes the body undergoes in 12 hours of extreme exertion are similar to some of those that occur in the body over the course of two decades of non-exertion, as a result of normal aging. Fortunately, though, those years are restored to you within a few weeks. Then it’s time to start thinking about tickling the reaper again.

Let’s take a more detailed look at how racing an Ironman affects various parts of your anatomy. There’s no particular lesson in this exercise, but it may give you a greater appreciation for the accomplishment of crossing an Ironman finish line.

Something “Wicked Hard” This Way Comes

Ironman begins to affect your body even before the starting horn—or cannon, in one notable event—sounds. Research has shown that the mere anticipation of exercise increases blood flow to the soon-to-be working muscles, as well as oxygen consumption and the release of hormones, including epinephrine (adrenaline), that prime the muscles for activity. This anticipatory response is mediated largely by a primitive part of the brain called the periaqueductal gray area, which is responsible for regulating the cardiorespiratory response to exercise.

That internal roiling you experience when you step out of your car at the event site on race morning, surrounded by your fellow competitors and the electric Ironman atmosphere, is essentially the same feeling your dog experiences when you show him the leash.

When the race begins, the biochemical state of every system in your body changes as each responds first to the challenge of swimming 2.4 miles, then to that of cycling 112 miles and finally to that of running 26.2 miles. Among the greatest physiological challenges are core body temperature regulation, dehydration, fuel supply and usage, muscle damage, nutrition absorption and processing and brain fatigue.

DeBoom writes

Black balloons and streamers decorated the house. Signs read, “It’s all downhill from here!” These are the memories I have of my father’s 40th birthday party. These are the memories that have stuck with me for the past 25 years.

I always knew it would come. For the past few years, I could feel it. It is not the sort of thing that usually concerns me in the least—I just don’t think about that stuff. However, this number was causing me to stutter in my steps. I was having a hard time even saying it aloud.

Forty. I was turning 40 years old.

For most people, 40 is just another birthday. The symbolic start of middle age maybe, but nothing too life changing. For a professional athlete, however, 40 definitely looms over you like a weight on your shoulders saying, “It’s time.” Time to hang it up? Time to move on? What time is it?

Because of that damn USAT rule in which you race at the age you will be at the end of the year, for most of 2010 I had to deal with the announcers at races calling out my name and occasionally surprising themselves. “Are you really 40?” they’d ask.

“Thirty-nine!” I’d holler back in pure defiance.

RELATED: Tim DeBoom – One Last Time

Yes, I feel the effects of age. I have had my share of injuries. I am a little slower getting out of bed in the morning. When my feet are tender and my back aches a little, I chalk it up to the hard workouts I’ve done. When it lingers, even after some downtime, it makes me realize I am not the sprightly lad who could once run 20 miles in the morning, go out late at night and feel fine the next day.

Thirty-nine was a great year, comparatively speaking. I think I turned the clock back a few years with my winter weight training, and I felt better than I had in a long time. It was not like I was 27 again, but I raced a full schedule and did not have any niggling injuries that lasted throughout the season. I was not as fast as I had wished, but I was healthy.

Still, I knew that number was waiting for me in November, and I was dreading it.
I don’t know why I’ve had so much trouble with that number. (See, I even have a hard time writing it.) I have many friends who are in their 40s, and they rave about it. For me, the day I turned 40 came and went rather unspectacularly. I did the things I always love to do, with the person—my wife, Nicole—I love to do them with. We went for a long mountain hike and then rolled all over town and trail on our bikes.

I did get one card, however, that gave me a nice perspective and improved my outlook on the forthcoming decade. A good friend wrote to remind me that your 40s rock. She said that in your 20s, everything is crazy, with so much turmoil, and you know nothing about life in general—I’d say that’s about right. She then said that in your 30s, it’s all about working toward professional goals, acquiring stuff, buying a house and finding some sort of stability. Right again. Finally, in your 40s, you can relax, enjoy the life you have created and truly appreciate where you have come and the people in your life who are important. That doesn’t sound too bad.

Then she gave me the best advice: Enjoy where you are now. Enjoy the view. Appreciate every moment because it is what you have worked so hard to build. Enjoy being 40, and every time you step up to that starting line from here on out, kick every youngster’s ass that you can, just to show them you are still around.

Photo: Hugh Gentry

While he was in high school, Dustin Brady raced both mountain and road bikes. In 1996 he won the California Junior State Championship on the trails and his division at the Redlands Road Race. After a number of challenging training days, he could just tell that his body wasn’t right. “It’s not good when you get back from a ride and can’t remember the last 10 miles,” he admits. “It’s just not safe.”

He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and would need to monitor his blood sugar for the rest of his life.
His racing career now on the back burner, Dustin headed off to college at Cal State Fullerton and started working for Shimano. Five and a half years ago, he met Michelle Weiser, the woman who would become his fiancé.

Two years into the relationship, Michelle was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. The cancer then metastasized into her lungs and it became stage IV, the worst possible scenario.

“We tried to make the best of things,” Dustin says. “Michelle was all about living life to the fullest. She always said that if there is something you want to do, do it before it’s too late.”

When Dustin went to Kona to support Shimano’s Ironman athletes in 2008 and 2009, Michelle came along.

The two of them loved watching the last athletes finishing between 11 p.m. and midnight. “Michelle turned to me and goes, ‘You should do this someday,’” he says. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s on my bucket list.’”

Dustin found out before Michelle that she didn’t have much time left. “She was having complications,” he says. “We went to the hospital, but Michelle wasn’t asking the tough questions. I asked a doctor what was going on and he told me that she had only weeks or months to live. He told me not to tell her, that I had to let Michelle ask the tough questions at her own pace.”

When Michelle asked the tough questions—and got the tough answers—her thoughts turned to everyone else. How was her mom going to handle Michelle’s death? How about Dustin? “I had gained weight and was pretty unhealthy,” Dustin says. “Michelle, in her typical sassy way, asked me what I was going to do when she was gone, that I didn’t have the life skills to handle things. I blurted out, ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to do an Ironman for you and for me.’ She started to tear up, I moved in to hug her and she put her hand up to stop me. Then she put her hand out and goes, ‘Do you promise?’ I shook her hand and told her it was a promise.”

Michelle passed away on July 5, 2010.

Dustin’s dad made a compact container to hold Michelle’s ashes, and Dustin had her with him throughout his Kona Ironday on Oct. 8, 2011.

He took the container out as he crested Palani and Michelle’s remains were in Dustin’s right hand for the last 1.2 miles. “It was overwhelming with all of these people yelling,” he says. “I was like, ‘How do they know my name? Oh yeah, it’s on my bib!’”

He crossed the line in 16:40:01. All he remembers is announcer Mike Reilly telling him that he was an Ironman and almost tripping.

Two women were in charge of guiding finishers to the post-race area. Dustin broke away from them, took a detour and headed to the beach where his race had begun nearly 17 hours earlier.

Dustin waded into Kailua Bay, opened the container housing Michelle’s ashes and scattered them into the surf.

“We spent the entire day together and I fulfilled my promise,” he says. “Then it was time to say goodbye.”

Bob Babbitt is the co-founder of Competitor magazine, the co-founder of the Challenged Athletes Foundation, the host of Competitor Radio and the 10th inductee into the Ironman Triathlon Hall of Fame. To hear his interviews with more than 500 endurance legends, visit Competitorradio.com.

Check out our complete 2011 Ironman World Championship coverage.

Achilles Running Tours – San Francisco

A love of running, racing and the Bay Area led Adam Zelazny to found Achilles Running Tours. “Thanks to the relatively small size of San Francisco, you can experience many of the city’s unique and famous sights and sounds in a very short distance,” he says. Achilles generally offers 3- to 5-mile tours with customized tours available.

Most popular tour: The Downtown Tour (4 miles), including a stop by the iconic Coit Tower.

Heard on the run: The first slot machine was invented right along the Downtown Tour route.

Achillestours.com

RELATED PHOTOS: The Escape From Alcatraz Swim

Photo: Nils Nilsen

Thinking about planning a training camp once the winter’s over? Flagstaff, Ariz. may be the perfect spot for it.

This story was originally published in the September/October issue of Inside Triathlon magazine. It has been edited for web publication.

The training destinations of choice for competitors preparing for the upcoming season continue to be Boulder, Colo., Tucson, Ariz., and San Diego. But for those adventurous souls who don’t want to follow the crowds yet need a place to train during the summer months or need a spot for a training camp, here’s an inside tip: Flagstaff, Ariz. It’s an inexpensive town that offers spectacular riding and running on lightly traveled mountain and high desert roads. At 7,000 feet above sea level, it can provide an even greater red blood cell kick than Boulder, which sits at about 5,500 feet. And for friends, family or significant others tired of the whole Lava Java tri-geek scene, the natural wonders of Flagstaff and the abundant tourist destinations within an hour’s drive of the city will keep them entertained while you swim, bike and run.

Flagstaff, or “Flag,” as the city’s known to locals, is already a Mecca for mountain bikers and professional runners. But it’s also one of the best-kept secrets among Ironman athletes living in Arizona, largely because its indoor 50-meter pool at Northern Arizona University, where Australian and Japanese national team swimmers come for weeks at a time, is the perfect complement to its great running trails and well-paved roads.

“It’s an untapped treasure,” said long-course pro Chris McDonald, who lives in Tucson and visits Flagstaff to train with his wife, Marilyn. “I can’t figure out why more people don’t go there. I really can’t. We’ve been to Boulder five or six times and I keep saying to Marilyn, ‘Why does everyone keep coming to Boulder?’ I can’t figure it out, especially the triathletes, because there’s very, very limited pool space in Boulder.”

Besides giving your red blood cells a kick, Flagstaff’s thinner air can help you improve your running, swimming and cycling mechanics, as you have to enhance your overall efficiency to stay out of oxygen debt in the thin air. This enhanced efficiency is one of the few things you’ll retain long-term when you come down from altitude, McDonald says.

RELATED: Getting There – Flagstaff

“It’s more difficult to do things there, so you get better economically,” he said. “You get better technique in swimming because you have to. Otherwise, you can’t breathe.”

Short-course ITU pros such as Simon Whitfield and his Canadian squad, and Chilean national triathlon squads make the trek to Flagstaff several times a year. But long-course athletes are the ones who can make the most out of Flagstaff’s extensive network of roads and trails.

“I always used to say when I trained at altitude and I went back down that I felt like I had something in my back pocket—that I had the trump card, because it’s so much easier when you come back down,” McDonald said.

Photo: Damien Noble Andrews

We’re looking for Miss/Mr. Triathlete.com December. Which of these models best represent triathlon and the multisport lifestyle? You decide! Check out the December entrants and then vote below. Results will be visible for the first week that the poll is open. Voting for the December gallery ends on Jan. 20, 2011 at 10:00 am Pacific Time. This is the final voting for the 2011 contest. The overall 2011 winner will be named at the end of January. Stay tuned for entry information for 2012.

Related Links:
- Miss Triathlete.com July 2011
- Miss Triathlete.com August 2011
- Miss Triathlete.com September 2011
- Miss Triathlete.com October 2011
- Miss Triathlete.com November 2011
- Kona Uncovered: 2011 Athletic Swimwear
- Summer Special: 2011 Swimwear … For The Beach!

Photo: Elizabeth Kreutz

Before he was a bicycling legend or a high-profile cancer crusader, Lance Armstrong was one hell of a triathlete. A pro at 16, he was a top-ranked junior for a few years before he became singularly focused on the bike. More than two decades later, Armstrong, now 40, recently returned to his multisport roots, finishing fifth at the 2011 Xterra National Championship, an impressive re-debut in a field of international world-class talent. Armstrong granted exclusive access to Triathlete and sports photographer Elizabeth Kreutz on race day, allowing us a rare glimpse into his much anticipated triathlon homecoming. This feature originally appeared in the December 2011 issue of Triathlete.

Triathlete: Now that you’ve had some time to reflect on the Xterra race, what are your impressions of the whole experience—your first race after more than 20 years?

Lance Armstrong: It was a lot harder than I expected. The effort was much more intense than what I thought it would be, which is partly due to the lack of intensity I had done in my training. And the altitude made it that much harder—but that was true for everyone racing. The most intense thing I did in training was swim with a group. Other than that I’d ride with some buddies, and the running has been sporadic because of my plantar fasciitis.

Triathlete: Why Xterra?

Armstrong: I spend a lot of time with [former pro and 1996 Xterra world champion] Jimmy Riccitello. We had always talked about doing an Xterra at some point, and I just thought that it was a logical place to go. I spent the summer at our house in Colorado and have been doing a lot more mountain biking than road riding so that was another factor. And generally at Xterra the emphasis is more on the bike.

Triathlete: Was there any sense of familiarity—things like going through a transition again—when you raced? Or was it a completely new and different experience?

Armstrong: I was shocked [laughing]. It was as if I had never done it before.

Triathlete: In terms of your expectations for results or winning the race, you said before the race that you just wanted to have fun, compete well and get back into it. Jimmy also said that he’s known you since you were 16 and you’ve always been fiercely competitive, so how do you temper that competitive drive with realistic expectations given all that you have going on in your life?

Armstrong: It’s fine to be competitive, which I am—most people know that—but at the same time I have to be a realist. I knew full well that I had had a crazy few weeks before [the race], a lot of travel, a lot of flights and hotel rooms, a lot of events and commitments that were time-consuming. The weekend before was my birthday, which was not very time-consuming but was not very healthy. I was in rare form. And the stuff in New York after that [speaking at the UN Social Good Summit, meeting with Mayor Bloomberg and work for Livestrong] was not the ideal recovery from the birthday weekend. These are all just bad excuses but they’re reality. The bottom line is I expected to be competitive in the sense that I have those nerves and those feelings but I’m realistic enough to know that I didn’t have the proper preparation to win.

PHOTOS: Exclusive Photos Of Lance Armstrong’s Return To Tri

Triathlete: You did a 21:55 swim—only a few guys went faster. Did the swim go as you had hoped?

Armstrong: I started with who I thought would be the fastest group. To me the swim was not fast enough. It was on the easy side and we didn’t put enough distance on the guys that maybe would struggle a little on the swim. It was nerve-racking and a little trickier at the end because we started catching people in the wave behind us. We were trying to pick our way through lapped swimmers.

Triathlete: There’s been lots of talk about the Tyr Freak of Nature wetsuit you wore. First, news about the $1,200 price tag, and then we saw you wearing it on race day. How was it?

Armstrong: Now they’ve got it marked down to $200? [Laughing] I am as anti-wetsuit as they come. … They’re way too advantageous to poor swimmers. It’s not a fair aid. It would be like if people on the bike that aren’t that strong could use disc wheels and people who are strong can use triple cross wheels that are slower. I don’t get it. Professional athletes should not need flotation devices to swim. Having said that, that water was cold! So that was a different story. This particular suit was far and away the best that I had tried. It felt the most natural.

Triathlete: On the bike, did you feel pressure to chase down the leaders from the get-go or were you committed to sticking to your own plan?

Armstrong: When I caught the Australian guy [Ben Allen] I thought that was it. Conrad [Stoltz] and I got onto the singletrack and he asked a group of spectators, ‘How far down are we?’ and I thought to myself, ‘Shit, I thought this was it, I thought it was just you and me!’ I yelled up to him, ‘What do you mean? Who’s up there?’ and he said [Dan] Hugo. I didn’t even know he had gotten out in front of us. I wasn’t that aware of what was going on in the race—other than the fact that I was suffering.