My fascination with the event began at the age of 10, when I first watched the Ironman on ABC's Wide World of Sports. I was riveted. During my introduction to the race, the unsettling image of Julie Moss crawling across the finish line was burned permanently into my consciousness. Her accomplishment mesmerized me. I couldn't imagine why anyone would attempt such a feat (2.4 miles swim, 112 miles bike, and 26.2 miles run) and how someone could withstand such suffering. The punishment her body endured was unimaginable, but as I witnessed her finish, it was her perseverance that left the most inspirational impression.

Fourteen years later, the Ironman seemed more impossible than ever. Two sedentary years after my competitive swimming days were over, I entered and completed my first triathlon. It was a sprint (.5 mile swim, 15 miles bike, 3.1 miles run) and to this day, remains one of the most difficult races of my life. While the experience was extremely challenging, the training and the racing were infectious and I continued to pursue the sport. Two years later, I completed my first Escape from Alcatraz triathlon (1.5 mile swim, 18 mile bike, 8 mile run) and began to expand the realm of what I thought was physically possible.

As I became more involved in the sport, I started to meet people who trained for and finished Ironmans regularly. I was also beginning to feel comfortable with the idea of doing each leg individually. Slowly, the Ironman was starting to seem possible, but only if I was willing to devote a year of my life to the preparation.

Then on August 26th of 2000, I came home from a Friday Happy Hour when the phone rang. "Dave, I signed up for the Ironman!!!" It was my best friend Lenny Glick. He had just come back from a Wake Forrest bar where he went to catch up with one of his business school friends after summer break. Apparently, Lenny's friend just finished IronmanUSA and talked Lenny into registering. Without any hesitation, I hung up the phone, went on-line, and signed up for my first Ironman. It was an impulsive decision that took years to make. If I was ever going to do it, I wanted to do it with friends, and if I was ever going to sign up, it was probably best done after a few beers. A week later, our other college friend, Alex Smith, signed up.

After 11 months of preparation, I can honestly say, I trained as much as life would allow. I trained in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, London, and Calcutta. I trained in weather conditions I wouldn't drive in, and covered more miles than some people travel in their whole life. In total (I started keeping track in mid-September) I swam 108 miles, biked 2,355 miles and ran 771 miles for a total of 3,234 miles in 307 hours of training.

By the time July 29th came around, I was absolutely ready! For almost a year, my life revolved around this day. My time and my thoughts were consumed with visions of the race and for the previous three weeks, it was difficult to sleep and nearly impossible to sit still. When it finally became time to jump in the water, I felt as much relief as I did anxiety.

The race began with a water start, which meant we had to swim out to the starting line. While floating under the flags, a warm tingle rushed through my spine. I was in the middle of the largest group of triathletes ever assembled for a mass Ironman start. We may have had different reasons and motivations, but we all travelled the same path, made the same commitments and shared the same dedication to get here. At 6:55am, the tension was palpable. 1,805 triathletes floated elbow to elbow with a common bond and a common purpose. In five minutes, our quest to become an Ironman would begin.

At exactly 7:00am, the race began. The swim was two laps around Mirror Lake and was utter mayhem. There was punching, scratching and kicking from the entire time. At least one person dropped out of the race after she was kicked so hard she couldn't continue. It was impossible to escape the fury. On two different occasions, I had to stop and fix my goggles after getting kicked right between the eyes.

When I exited the water an hour later, I was not far off from the leaders. Unfortunately, the swim is my strongest event. Every race I enter, I always exit the water near the lead, then have to transition to my weakest event and watch biker after biker ride by. This race was no different, but I couldn't let it get to me. The Ironman is not a race against others, it is a competition against yourself. It is a battle between you and the course, a war between your mind and your body. When I got on the bike, I could not worry about the other athletes. I had only one goal in mind; to finish. In order to do so, I would have to pace myself. In order to do that, I had to keep telling myself that my day hadn't even started, I have 12 more hours to race.

The bike course was challenging. The Lake Placid region is very hilly and incredibly scenic, so the ride was no different. It ran two loops, plus an out and back, of Route 86. Going from Lake Placid to Jay, the course was mostly downhill where speeds reached an excess of 50 miles an hour. The road from Jay to Wilmington, including the out and back, was rolling and winding which allowed for some mindless riding, and the final 11 miles from Wilmington into Lake Placid were primarily uphill. The grade wasn't too steep, but after 100 miles of riding, seemed excessively cruel.

When riding a bike for six-and-a-half-hours, it is impossible for your mind not to wander. Thoughts of excitement, fear, invincibility and self-defeat paraded through my head. At times, it was almost schizophrenic. While there was plenty of amazing scenery to look at, it was the random thoughts that occupied my mind. There was one overarching theme to my thoughts however, that there isn't a better place to hold an Ironman than Lake Placid. The people here are connoisseurs of fine athletic events. After all, Lake Placid has hosted two Winter Olympics and is home to the US Winter Olympic training facility. There are probably more Olympic medallists per capita in the Lake Placid area than any other area in the world. During the race, almost every mile of the course was filled with spectators; people sat on their front lawns, rode the course on their bikes and in their cars, and even climbed a rock cliff to sit on a ledge to cheer us on. It always seemed like when you needed it most, there was someone there to give you a boost.

One of the most important aspects of Ironman racing is nutrition. When you put your body through such extreme exertion for over twelve hours, it is going to need vast quantities of fuel to keep it going. Since there are no lunch breaks, it is important to figure out what types of food you can eat and process when you are racing. My strategy going into the race was to eat a lot of Powerbars on the ride and a lot of GU on the run. I knew they would have Gatorade and water on the course, so I wasn't that worried about my hydration. The day before the race I packed my transition and special needs bags. Wanting to make everything as easy as possible, I unwrapped all of my Powerbars, chopped them into little bite sized pieces and then wrapped them in tin foil so they were easily accesible on the ride. I actually went to bed thinking I was clever.

When I got out of the swim and through the swim to bike transition area, I put my Powerbars in the back pocket of my biking jersey. An hour into the ride, I learned a very valuable lesson: never chop up your Powerbars and wrap them in tin foil before an Ironman. The bite sized pieces melted together and became soldered to the tin foil. They were impossible to unwrap. Still needing the nutrition, I had to eat my Powerbrick bite by small bite, hoping my stomach wouldn't punish me later. When noon rolled around, I had had my limit. My peanut butter and honey sandwich had suffered the same fate as my Powerbars, so I decided to throw out the rest of my food and eat whatever they had available on the course. By the time the race was over, I had consumed around 40 GUs and 20 bananas.

Halfway up the out and back on my second loop, around mile 90, I was cruising with a pack of riders when I hit a pothole. The jolt knocked the pump off my frame and against my leg. As I pulled the brakes, the pump started to tangle in my gears and rub against my spokes. Quickly, I had to slow down in hopes that the pump wouldn't lodge itself in my wheel and cause me to wreck. When I stopped on the side of the road and got off my bike to assess the damage, I almost threw up. My pump had gotten completely tangled in the rear cogset, wrapped around it twice and bent my rear derailleur. I thought my race was over. Immediately, I pulled at my pump and tried to slip it out of the cogset. It took about 5 minutes, but I successful. Then came the big test. I mounted my bicycle and pedaled slowly for about 35 feet. My chain made a horrible clicking noise, but was in tact and after adjusting my gears, I discovered I had the ability to shift between two gears; my middle and my easiest. It was perfect, since the last 20 miles of the ride were primarily uphill!

Going into the race, my strategy was to make leisurely transitions. I thought 8 minutes in each tent would be plenty of time to relax, stretch and regroup for the next event. I stuck to my plan during the swim to bike transition and started to do the same in the bike to run transition. When I sat down to take off my bike shoes, my entire body cramped. My thighs knotted, my abdomen contracted and my toes curled. The only thing I could do was to stand straight up and scream.

While I was in the tent, I noticed the guy sitting next to me hadn't moved the entire time while I was changing. He just sat with his hands on his knees, stared straight ahead and rocked back and forth. One of the volunteers kept telling him to keep going and that he would regret it for the rest of his life if he quit, but the guy didn't say a thing. He just kept staring in space. I maybe wasn't in first place, but I sure wasn't suffering as bad as that guy, even if I did have a 15 minute transition.

The marathon began with a short flat section, immediately followed by a long downhill that led out of town towards the foot of the Olympic ski jumps. When I started running, my legs felt pretty good, but when I hit the downhill, they started to tighten and burn. Halfway down the hill, my hamstrings cramped. I stopped and stretched, but was slow to loosen up, so I had to walk down the rest of the hill.

As the miles piled up, my body experienced sensations I could never have comprehended. Every step rocked my body, my legs felt like lead and my thighs burned incessantly. The uphills required more energy than I could muster, the downhills caused more pain than I could handle, but never once did I think about quitting or stopping. The challenge was to keep moving forward and I wasn't going to stop, the course was not going to defeat me, I was going to become an Ironman!

About 14 miles into the run, my hamstrings tightened up on me again. When I was done stretching and started to run again, I ran past Alex who was on his way in from the out and back and he asked how I was doing. I told him about my cramps and he warned me to increase my salt intake. Going into the race, I knew I would have to watch my salt and hydration. I sweat a lot and often times lose huge quantities of salt. Even though I was armed with this caution entering the race, I didn't critically monitor myself throughout the day. By the time I ran past Alex, I was starting to get nauseous, lightheaded and delirious. Whenever I entered a water station, I felt like I was moving in slow motion (which was probably true) and everybody around me was making exaggerated gestures.

Fortunately, Alex's advice resonated and my sole mission became to increase my salt levels. I started drinking vast amounts of Gatorade and chicken soup. I ate GUs and pretzels and chocolate chip cookies. I ate every banana and orange slice in sight and poured salt on everything I digested. The volunteers handing out the drinks also held salt shakers. Whenever I passed one, I dumped some in my mouth. Before mile 17 I had peed 6 times, from mile 17 on, I had to stop every 15 minutes.

As the race continued to march on, my only focus was to get to the next mile marker, followed by the water stop, then the nearest porta-potty. I couldn't think about the hours ahead of me, just the immediate task. To break the monotony of the day, the skies began to darken and around mile 20, it started to rain. It wasn't a driving rain, but at times came down quite steady. At first, it was a cool relief, but eventually, it started to get cold. People suffered from severe hypothermia and exhaustion on the course. Every few miles there was an ambulance and what seemed like every few minutes there were sirens in the distance. The end of an Ironman is not glamorous, it's gutsy and gory. There are some pretty amazing people out there displaying some pretty amazing performances, but there are also some pretty amazing people out there who just didn't have enough on that particular day.

By now, the salt and hydration effort started to pay off. I began to get my running legs around mile 22. I'm not sure if it was a second wind driven by the imminent finish, or if the salt really did rejuvenate me. In either case the pain started to escape my body and besides from stopping to pee, I ran non-stop for the rest of the race, pulled by the lure of the finish line.

At mile 24, the run course led up the final hill and then made a victory lap through town on the way to the finish line. As soon as you get to the hill, the streets were packed with people. Even in the rain, the support of the spectators was amazing. In spots, the crowds were 3 deep. Adding to the ambiance was the sound of the finish line. Music was blaring, the announcer's voice was echoing, and the crowds were roaring. By mile 25, I was in a complete trance. I had survived 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking, and 25 miles of running. Eleven months of training and sacrifice were about to pay off. In one more mile, I would have accomplished a goal that I had always fantasized about, but never fathomed possible. In one more mile, I would do something that no one could ever take away from me. In one more mile, I was going to become an Ironman!

I don't remember much about the last mile except for the final few hundred yards. The run course turns off of the road and dumps into the Olympic speed skating oval where Erik Heiden won his 5 gold medals in the 1980 Winter Olympics. As you make the final turn on the oval, the course is lined with bleachers and spectators and when you cross the finish line, you get to break the Ironman victory tape.