If you see hordes of men and women running the streets of Madison in short shorts this weekend, fear not. The Ironman Triathlon swings into town Saturday for its inaugural Ironman Wisconsin event.
The race, starting promptly at 7 a.m. on Sept. 15, is the Midwest qualifying event for the 2003 Ironman National Championship in Hawaii. Close to 2200 competitors will race, and 90 percent are expected to finish the race.
After starting with a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Monona, the racers then trade Speedos for spandex for the 112-mile bike ride that will take them to exotic locales such as Verona. The triathletes will then run a full marathon of 26.2 miles, most of which is through campus. The race ends where it starts — on Monona Terrace, where there will be an awards banquet and where invitations to next year’s national championship will be given out.
The triathletes are split into age groups for both men and women starting at 18 and ranging to an open senior division. For each group, the top five finishers qualify for the race in Hawaii. That leaves only a total of 80 tickets to the Aloha State.
What makes this race unique is the Collegiate Challenge: a new qualifying group for full-time students of any age. This is the first year of the Collegiate Challenge, and the turnout of 143 students from 80 campuses across the country will vie for the crown of the top college triathlete.
The Collegiate Challenge is split into an individual race and a team race. All collegiate racers will wear their respective school racing uniforms. Twelve athletes in the competition will represent UW.
Along with the students and the weekend warriors, there will be professional triathletes in the competition. The favorites to win the race are the Canadian Jaime Cleveland, the Australian Chris Legh and the American Peter Kotland, any of whom is capable to cross the finish around 3:20 p.m., only eight hours and 20 minutes after starting the race.
What makes a triathlon such a grueling event is that it is man against himself. Whether the goal is to finish the race or to win it, a triathlon always is a matter of fighting the impulse to stop. With such an internal battle at the core of this sport, it comes as no surprise that many people who have fought to save their own lives use triathlons as a way to struggle positively — a way to show themselves what they can achieve after losing so much.
One of these people who will be racing this weekend is Todd Crandell of Sylvania, Ohio. Racing in the 35- to 39-year-old division, Crandell has been a triathlete for three years. His first race in the 1999 Ironman Florida event was run in the same city where Crandell had lived out of his Buick Regal for ten years.
What lead Crandell to living in his car was a vicious alcohol and drug addiction he battled for 13 years. Crandell beat his addiction with the help of hockey, a sport he had played since he was young. At the age of 27, Crandell signed with a semi-pro club, earned the first steady paycheck of his life and more importantly, kicked his addictions.
Luckily Crandell and the other competitors shouldn’t have to contend with the elements. The forecasted conditions seem perfect for the event.
“The weather forecast seems to be favorable for the competitors,” said collegiate triathlete Andy Oppenheimer from the University of Cincinnati.
“A high in the mid-70s with low humidity and cloudy conditions should make for a cool day and a fast race. The water temperature of Lake Monona will be roughly the same as the outside temperature.”
