Finding Ultra (23 page)

Body Evolution.
For the cover of
3/GO
magazine, John Segesta re-created in the summer of 2011 the exact same image he snapped of me running two years earlier (the photo that graces the cover of this book). At the time, I honestly didn't think my body could possibly appear any fitter than it did in that picture. But when you line up the two photos alongside each other, it's not hard to see how my body continues to evolve—getting leaner, stronger, and faster with each successive year, regardless of age.
(PHOTO BY JOHN SEGESTA)

Barefoot in the Barrio.
Probably my favorite photograph, taken by John Segesta for
3/GO
magazine.
(PHOTO BY JOHN SEGESTA)

When I was training in Hawaii with my Ultraman brother Jason Lester in the weeks leading up to the 2009 Ultraman, he let me in on a project that he'd been developing over the past year.

“Four letters, Roll-Dawg. Four small letters, but one big word: E-P-I-C,
epic
. Five iron-distance triathlons. Five islands. Five days. E-P-I-C,
epic …
The EPIC5 Challenge!” A broad grin worked its way across his face as he spread wide five fingers on his left, and only functional, hand.

I let this sink in before I spoke. “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight, are you saying—”

Jason cut me off. “I'll start with an iron-distance triathlon in Kauai, then head to Oahu, where I'll do the original Ironman course. Then to Molokai, followed by Maui, and I'll finish up on the Ironman World Championship course on the Big Island.”

I shook my head and chuckled. Nothing even close to this had ever been done before—not even attempted. The logistics of inter-island travel alone were exhausting. But an iron-distance triathlon a day? Every day, five days in a row, on top of flying from island to island each evening? Impossible. Still, I knew Jason well enough to know that once he set his sights on a goal, there was no stopping him.

Maybe that's because he'd never met an obstacle he couldn't overcome. He'd been taken from his drug-addicted mother at age
three, been paralyzed in his right arm after being struck by a car in his early teens, and only a few years later he'd suffered the death of his beloved father, leaving him entirely alone in the world. But he'd come out the other side a champion. These days he cobbled together just enough funds to train and race full-time. Living a nomadic life, he was on a mission to inspire the best in others.

“Sounds like a party,” I replied sarcastically. “But in all seriousness, let me know how I can help. Whatever you need, Jason. Just as long as I get to watch from the sidelines. Preferably the nosebleed seats.”

As I described at this book's outset, in the fall of 2009 I returned to the Ultraman World Championships, leading the race pillar to post for almost eight straight hours to seize the Day One victory with authority—by a full ten minutes, in fact. For the first time in my athletic life, I was no longer the also-ran—that second-place guy who just couldn't quite get on top. Finally, at age forty-three, I'd shed that burden and won something. Something big.

But Day Two found me bloodied and battered, flat on my face, limbs strewn across Hawaii's Red Road. My bike was trashed. I was entirely alone. And I could barely move, my knee immobile. It seemed a given that the race was over for me. But it wasn't.

Lifted by the
ohana
of fellow crews, a first-aid kit, the miraculous donation of a brand-new pedal, and the encouragement of Julie and Tyler, I got back on the bike. At that point, I wasn't in a race against my competitors, but rather myself. It was a hard-fought battle just to complete those 170 miles with a raw, throbbing shoulder and a knee that screamed in agony with each successive stroke. When I finally pedaled into the town of Hawi to mark the end of Day Two, I collapsed in a heap on the warm dewy grass just past
the finish line, in tears not just of pain but of powerful emotion at having found the wherewithal to somehow see the day through.

And even at that, I had one more ordeal to overcome.

It was on the last day of the race—a double marathon run that I doubted I could even attempt, let alone complete, given my horribly swollen knee—that I experienced the most suffering I'd ever felt on a run up to that time. Baking in the irrepressible heat of the Kona lava fields, dehydrated and body failing, I cursed the race, the crash, myself, the world. That's when suddenly I recalled a David Goggins quote I'd read years back—the idea that when you believe you've reached your absolute limit, you've only tapped into about 40 percent of what you're truly capable of. The barrier isn't the body. It's the mind.

Then I found myself thinking about what Julie had said to me, just before the race started that morning: “Remember, it's already done. All you have to do now is show up. Stay present. And show us who you really are.”

Show us who you really are
.

Nearing the end of that interminable run, as I made the final descent off the Queen K Highway toward the Old Airport landing strip for the last stretch to the finish line, I was swept off the ground by Julie, my crew, Tyler, and Trapper—all cheering wildly for me. And once again, those all-too-familiar tears returned.

I was proud of myself. I'd showed up. I'd played hard when I was hurt. And I'd gotten it done. I'd crossed the finish line not just intact, but alive.
Truly alive
. That third day I'd covered 52.4 miles in seven hours and fifty-one minutes. It was a full seventy minutes faster than my 2008 effort—good enough for sixth place overall in a total time of twenty-four hours and thirty minutes. I was the top American finisher with a time that would have actually won the race outright in both 2005 and 2006. Remarkably, I'd actually gone
faster
than David Goggins had in 2006—the man whose stunning athleticism first inspired this harebrained adventure to begin with.

Is this it?
I wondered.
Will I ever top this feeling, ever top this performance?
I couldn't know then that an even more arduous test was waiting in my future.

During the 2009 holiday season, Jason Lester, my Ultraman training partner who had talked fancifully about trying to complete five consecutive iron-distance triathlons on five different Hawaiian islands—a feat he called the EPIC5—visited my family at our house in Los Angeles. On New Year's Eve, Julie organized a “visioning” project for the family and a few close friends, Jason included. We took the better part of the afternoon of December 31 to itemize the things that no longer served us, qualities we wanted to overcome, ideas we needed let go of, and dreams we wished to see materialize in 2010. Gathering everyone together at dusk around our outdoor fire pit, Julie kicked things off with a brief but powerful blessing. Then we went around in a circle, each of us mustering the courage to share a few of our private items aloud. Then we cast our notes in the fire. It sounds simple but it was a potent gesture, bringing us all closer. I remember glancing across the fire at Jason, watching as a small smile played at his lips.

The next morning, he joined me as I sipped on a green smoothie in our backyard and kicked absently at the ashes in the fire pit from the night before. He cleared his throat and began.

“Big Bro. I've been doing a lot of thinking. I think you're supposed to do EPIC5 with me. And there is nobody else I'd rather have with me than you. What do you think? Are you in?!”

My immediate reaction was a surge of adrenaline. Because despite my prior dismissive eye rolling, I'd been secretly hoping that he'd ask this very question.
Am I in?!? Are you kidding me?
But now
that the possibility was actually on the table, my closeted aspirations were quickly replaced with terror.
Holy crap! Five iron-distance triathlons in five days. Can it be done?

What he proposed was more than daunting. It was almost unimaginable—indeed, it was verging on impossible. EPIC5, as Jason had conceived it, was far more than a race. Rather, it was an unprecedented crazy-ass, down-the-rabbit-hole, into-thin-air adventure.

In our modern world, there are few remaining untried challenges. Endurance junkies have raced their bikes across America without sleep, swum the Amazon, pedaled from Alaska to Chile, and paddled the Pacific. Three guys have even run across the Sahara, from Senegal all the way to the Red Sea! And of course, men have walked on the moon. The days of great adventurers such as Lewis and Clark, Sir Edmund Hillary, Amelia Earhart, and Ernest Shackleton are long over. It seems as though everything has been done.

Yet here it was—a challenge not yet attempted that just sat there, almost begging for a go. The proposition fascinated me precisely because it was so lunatic.

As tempted as I was, I ruminated on the decision for a few days, letting the reality of it all properly sink in. I wanted to ensure that I had the support of my family and could follow through on the commitment required.

“I'm in,” I finally announced to a bemused Jason. Sealing the deal with a hug, I was immediately struck by a foreboding thought:
What have I gotten myself into?

Jason promptly returned to Hawaii to face the full-time task of hammering out the logistical challenges of pulling off EPIC5. Alone, he traveled to each of the five islands, meeting with local community leaders, firming up the travel itinerary, securing lodging, and
recruiting locals to provide the critical volunteer crew services we'd need just to get from point A to point B each day intact.

As for me, it was time to roll up my sleeves and get back to work. After having taken a month off from training following the 2009 Ultraman, I'd gotten soft—gaining weight and indulging the feeling of being a “normal person.” But now, with a firm EPIC5 start date of May 5, I had an urgent need to get back on the horse with a solid training plan. There was no time to waste.

My first move was calling up my coach to let him know I was ready to resume a training program.

“Great!” said Chris. “What are we training for?”

I took a deep breath. “You're going to laugh” was all I could muster.

Although I'd raced two Ultramans, I was still very much an endurance neophyte in Chris's eyes—inexperienced and easily excitable. But my coach didn't laugh—as I'd thought he might. Instead he responded with tempered enthusiasm. It wouldn't be easy, he said, but it was doable. And he was excited by the challenge of devising a training regimen for something never before attempted. I remember at that moment feeling relief. I knew that if Chris thought I could do it, then it could be done.

How do you prepare for five iron-distance triathlons in five days on five different islands? The question had never been asked, so there existed no proven protocol. With only four short months to prepare, my inclination was to cram as many miles and hours as possible into each day. But that wasn't the answer. Instead, Chris devised a program built around a single premise:
slow down
. To be sure, plenty of miles. But the intensity of all my sessions was capped far below what I'd grown accustomed to. Whether swimming, biking, or running, the idea was to acclimate the body to be
always moving
. To adapt to the progressive fatigue I'd face, I
even experimented with sleep deprivation, pulling very late nights at work followed by full days of training on little more than two or three hours of sleep.

But the main thing I had to remember was that this wasn't a “race.” EPIC5 had nothing to do with going fast, let alone winning. Rather, it was better to frame it as an adventure, the goal being nothing more than finishing each day hand in hand with Jason. All for one and one for all.

Julie and the kids wanted to join me in Hawaii to support the challenge, but we quickly realized that the daily inter-island travel would prove too daunting for our little ones. So we decided I'd have to take this one on without the crew that had supported me so well at the 2009 Ultraman.