Iron War Page 15

  Before he took the first bite of a tortilla, Mark doused it with salt. A few months earlier he had traveled to Duke University in North Carolina to undergo physiological testing in the laboratory of exercise scientists Doug Hiller and Mary O’Toole. He had ridden a stationary bike for more than four hours in simulated Kona conditions—90-degree heat and 90 percent humidity. Then he’d jumped off the bike and onto a treadmill to run for a couple hours more in the same conditions. Doug and Mary had collected and analyzed Mark’s sweat and found that it was unusually salty. They informed Mark that he lost more sodium in his perspiration than most athletes and that this abnormality might have contributed to his poor showings at Ironman. They advised him to consume extra salt before and during the race. He had added this item to his short list of new things to try.

  Another item arrived with a rap on the door later in the afternoon, after Mark woke from his daily nap. Grip answered the knock, and a slight, middle-aged man with a smooth face and prematurely white hair entered the condo. It was Phil Maffetone himself. His right hand clasped the handle of a carry-on-sized, soft-walled suitcase. After exchanging greetings with Mark, and with Julie and Mike Rubano, who were also present, Phil got down to business.

  He opened the case and pulled out what would have looked very much like a body bag but for its cheerful red color and flattened it out on the carpet. A small electric generator also emerged. Phil found a wall socket and plugged it in. He attached a length of hose to the generator at one end and to a valve in the bag at the other end. He instructed Mark to remove his shirt, strap on a heart rate monitor, and climb inside the bag.

  Phil sealed the bag with a zipper and flipped a switch on the generator, which began to buzz. The body bag with Mark inside inflated. Julie burst out laughing.

  “It looks like a giant hot dog!” she said.

  “You’re right! It does!” Mike Rubano said, laughing too.

  “Don’t eat me!” Mark called out from inside the bag.

  Now everyone laughed. Mike’s and Julie’s eyes met. Mark made a joke. He’s loose. This is good.

  Grip lay for forty-five minutes inside what Julie would thereafter call the Big Red Wiener while Phil periodically checked his heart rate. Phil knew better than to meddle in the details of Mark’s training, but Mark trusted him enough to try couldn’t-hurt experiments such as this one. As Mark lay there, Mike sat watching, amazed for the second time that day by what his friend was willing to do to win Ironman.

  Phil departed with his portable hyperbaric chamber, which, he claimed, loaded the muscle cells with oxygen for later use during exercise. Mike Pigg had the next appointment with the chamber. Mark had encouraged Mike, his good friend and fiercest short-course rival, to hook up with Phil, less to help a rival than to win a convert to the spiritual, natural-health approach to triathlon Mark shared with Phil. Mark followed his massage therapist, also a stones-and-herbs kind of guy, next door to receive his daily rubdown, and Mike kneaded Mark’s flesh for an hour and a quarter.

  Ninety minutes of lying in bed, napping. Forty-five minutes of lying in a giant inflated hot dog. Seventy-five minutes of lying on a massage table, being kneaded. Just another busy Iron Week afternoon for Mark Allen.

  BY WEDNESDAY THE WEATHER in Kailua-Kona was almost back to normal. The winds had calmed, and the temperature had risen. On that day Dave Scott finally reduced his training to a level that any mortal triathlete would consider necessary to be sure the body was adequately rested for race day. He started his morning with a four-mile run along Ali’i Drive. Although he made no special effort to push the pace, he felt so strong that his tempo increased steadily as he went along.

  In his final training block after Ironman Japan, Dave had run six-minute miles until he could almost run them in his sleep. He believed that a 2:37 marathon—or a thirty-seconds-per-mile improvement on his Ironman run course record of 2:49, set in 1987—was possible for him. It might even be necessary to win the race, because Mark’s superhuman run in April’s World Cup Triathlon suggested it might be possible for him too.

  Dave was cruising past Kahalu’u Beach Park, a popular snorkeling and turtle-watching spot, at his familiar goal pace when Triathlete editor CJ Olivares drove by in the opposite direction. CJ recognized the Man’s familiar duck-like running style before he recognized the body. Dave looked like a runner—taut and almost dangerously lean. He barely resembled the puffy, top-heavy swimmer who had won Ironman in 1980. A slow metamorphosis had begun immediately thereafter, yet Dave scarcely even resembled the athlete CJ had last seen just a few months earlier at USTS Phoenix. A highway map of engorged green veins under vellum-thin skin was visible in Dave’s legs even from across the road.

  In consideration of how Mark Allen had performed in his spring and summer races, CJ had come to Kona with a hunch that Grip would finally win. But now, seeing Dave’s thoroughbred physique and the bullying confidence written on his face, he reconsidered. Flip a coin, he now thought.

  CJ quickly pulled off the road and dug out his notepad. He scribbled a few key phrases that would serve to jog his memory when he later sat down to write his race report. Among them was this sentence: “Dave looks ready to run!”

  Dave followed up his short run with an easy, fifty-minute ride and then made his one foray to Dig Me Beach to navigate the swim course in the proper direction. His appearance there, as always, caused a sensation. Dave was not mobbed as, say, Joe Montana would have been by football fans at a shopping mall. Instead, with that unique Iron Week fantasy of celebrity in their heads, Dave’s fellow triathletes played it cool, or so they fancied, thrusting their right hands at the Man in ones and twos as he passed, blurting out the credentials that qualified them as his peers, delineating their 2 degrees of separation while they had his attention.

  “My cousin John Smith was at your triathlon camp in Boulder last year.”

  “My sister’s husband works for one of your sponsors. The name John Smith ring a bell?”

  “Hi, Dave. John Smith. We met at USTS San Diego in ’85.”

  Dave rolled with it, having budgeted glad-handing time into the mission and being constitutionally incapable of blowing off his admirers. It always took him an hour to cross a room in Kona.

  LATER THAT SAME AFTERNOON Mark Roberts, one of Dave’s former water polo teammates at UC-Davis and now a cardiologist practicing in San Diego, walked past Dig Me Beach toward the front entrance to the King Kamehameha Hotel. Roberts had followed Dave into the sport of triathlon, albeit as an amateur, and would compete in his first Ironman Saturday. Athlete registration had opened at race headquarters inside the hotel, and Roberts was on his way to pick up a packet containing his race numbers, transition and special-needs bags, and other essential paraphernalia.

  Roberts followed the sidewalk past the beach and then along the edge of a small lawn shaded by a huge banyan tree. This tree, which was clearly visible from the swim turnaround point a mile and a quarter away, would be used as a landmark by Ironman competitors as they swam back toward shore on Saturday. Next to the tree Roberts spotted another landmark: a giant inflated plastic likeness of Scott Tinley that stood at this spot every October to promote Tinley’s signature line of performance apparel. Next to it a triathlete posed proudly for a photograph. Hundreds of others would do likewise before Saturday. Though Tinley’s best days as an athlete were already behind him, he remained one of the most popular figures in the sport. A visit to the inflated figure was a rite of the Ironman pilgrimage, like kissing the Wailing Wall.

  Upon entering the hotel’s Kamakahonu Ballroom, Roberts encountered a hive of activity. Scores of other athletes were already there, some standing quietly in lines, others standing in circles of animated talk and laughter. Race officials pointed the disoriented ones this way and that. Sponsors’ signs competed for attention. As he got his bearings, Roberts noticed that several of the big-name pros were seated at small tables, where they appeared to be signing autographs for fans. There was Dave Scott, looking supremely health
y, as always, behind his centrally placed table. And there was Mark Allen, whom Roberts knew a bit from the San Diego scene, at a table just far enough from Dave’s to avoid awkwardness, with Tinley between them.

  Roberts was surprised to see that dozens of excited-looking athletes were lined up waiting for Dave’s signature, but only a handful stood at Mark’s table. As much as Roberts favored his old teammate, this disparity was no reflection, he knew, of the relative statures of the two men in the sport. Sure, this was Ironman, and Dave was a six-time winner of the race, while Mark was a perennial bridesmaid. Thus, Dave deserved and was expected to be the most popular man on the island. But the score should not have been 80 to 4, as it seemed to be. After all, Grip had won many more total races than Dave, was universally considered the best all-around triathlete in the world, and got just as much press as Dave did.

  Closer study revealed the true reason for the disparity. Dave was having fun. He engaged each fan in lively conversation and showed not a trace of impatience to keep the line moving. He did not half listen, as most celebrities do in such situations; instead he seemed to truly want to hear about his admirers’ backgrounds and goals and to impart a bit of helpful advice if he could. It was the coach and teacher in him coming out.

  Dave also unabashedly relished being the Man. He enjoyed being fawned over and admired. Early in his career he had unashamedly expressed his desire to be remembered as a legend. In excess, this kind of hullabaloo drained him, as it would anyone, but in modest doses it energized him, and there was no better time to absorb such energy than three days before the race he personified.

  By contrast, Mark was pleasant enough in his interactions with those who dared approach him, but his body language discouraged engagement. While Dave absorbed energy from his admirers, Mark felt that fans stole his energy. Like many spiritual people, Grip had a mystical understanding of energy. For him, energy wasn’t just the adenosine triphosphate molecules packed inside muscle cells whose breakdown fueled muscle contractions. It was also an intangible force that moved between people and existed as a resource in different environments. Knowing this, Scott Tinley had once jokingly waved his arms around Mark to “disrupt his aura” right before the start of a race. Mark not only found no humor in the prank but was angered by it because, from his perspective, Tinley really had disrupted his energy aura.

  At no time was energy hoarding more important to Mark than during the last few days before Ironman.

  Disregarding Mark’s “leave me alone” signals, Roberts walked up to the table and said hello. Grip seemed almost not to recognize Roberts, despite having frequently shared a lane with him at masters swim workouts in San Diego. The conversation was awkward (on Roberts’s end—Mark seldom showed awkwardness) and brief. Roberts then made his way over toward Dave. He had no wish to wait in line for a word with his besieged friend, but he wanted to connect, so he bum-rushed Dave’s table from the side, apologized to the fan whose experience he was interrupting, and offered Dave his hand.

  “Hey, Mark!” Dave said. “Fancy seeing you here. Are you racing?”

  The line of dozens was instantly forgotten. Roberts had Dave’s full attention. Dave’s nonverbal cues suggested to Roberts that he could chat with his old teammate all day if he wanted to. But Roberts had things to do, and he didn’t want to be rude to those waiting, so he kept the tête-à-tête short, then moved on to pick up his race packet.

  After the autograph session wrapped up, Dave made a couple of appearances at the expo booths of his sponsors. This was an obligation Mark had also borne for his own sponsors until 1987, when a long autograph session at the Kellogg’s Pro-Grain booth had left him traumatized. Mark had staggered away from the nightmare of meeting and greeting as though each fan in turn had sunk a pair of fangs into his jugular vein and sucked out a pint of blood. He had vowed never to do the expo thing again. With today’s duties fulfilled, Mark was relieved to have the chance to hurry back to the Kanaloa.

  DAVE HOSTED A GATHERING at his condo that evening. The whole circle of confidence attended: Verne, Dot, Jane, Pat Feeney, John Reganold, Mike Norton, and baby Ryan, who had no choice. Anna cooked a big pot of pasta, and there was spirited talk as everyone ate. This was a yearly ritual. Dave liked to bring everyone together when the race was close, but not too close, to create a happy atmosphere and make a plan for spectating and support on race day.

  Pat presided over the meeting. Affecting the bearing of a war-room commander, he told his attentive troops where he wanted them to be to supply Dave with encouragement and information, and how they would get there. This year, he said, Anna and Verne would ride along in his car, which they would pile into right after the swim and spur to Waikoloa Resort, where they would see Dave at the twenty-four- and eighty-mile points of the bike leg. Mike and John would cannonball farther out in a separate vehicle, to Kawaihae, where they would see Dave at thirty-three and seventy-one miles.

  As Pat issued his orders, he couldn’t help but notice that Dave seemed preoccupied. Pat stopped speaking in midsentence, his eyes lingering on Dave as he waited for instructions.

  “I want to see Ryan,” Dave said.

  Both the athlete and the father were speaking. Dave wanted the competitive advantage he would derive from the emotional lift of that moment. But orchestrating that moment would be no small feat for Pat. On the one hand, Anna was determined to get out on the course and see Dave at multiple points in the bike and run legs. On the other hand, dragging Ryan along on that mission would be disruptive to the baby’s routine. What to do?

  The women took over. Pat held his peace while Dot, Jane, and Anna went back and forth with various ideas until they settled on a plan to leave Ryan and a supply of pumped breast milk with Dot on race morning. Anna would watch the swim and catch Dave at a couple of spots on the bike leg with Pat and Verne. At the end of the bike leg Anna would race back to Sea Village, give Ryan a quick feeding, and take him outside to see his dad run past, six miles into the marathon. Then she would leave the baby with Dot once more and get back out on the course.

  All eyes turned back to Dave for his approval.

  “As long as I see him,” he said.

  Dave did not discuss his personal race plan with the full assembly of guests. After everyone else had left, Pat alone was clued in to those details.

  “Do you think Mark’s really going to try and sit on you all day?” Pat asked him.

  Dave told Pat he did not think Mark was bluffing.

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Pat asked.

  “I’ll try to get away from him.”

  “When?”

  “In the swim.”

  Pat lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Do you think you can?”

  “Maybe; maybe not. I’m swimming well. But even if I don’t, I’ll make him work harder than he wants to.”

  “And the bike?”

  “Same thing.”

  “And if he’s still with you in the run?”

  Dave told Pat that, in the very unlikely event that they were still together coming into town, he would break away from Mark on the descending half of Palani Hill, with about a mile to go.

  THURSDAY MORNING Dave and Mark saw each other again, in closer quarters than they had during the previous day’s autograph session, at the professional athletes’ race meeting held at the King Kamehameha Hotel. Before the session formally convened, Tinley, like the free spirit in biology class, made a show of pulling items of equipment from his transition bags as though they were magic sacks. Out came a cycling shoe. He widened his eyes, mouthed, “Wow!” and showed the clever invention around the room. Out next came a bike helmet. Tinley licked an index finger, touched it to the skid lid, and made a sizzling sound.

  For the next ninety minutes Tinley and his peers racing in the men’s and women’s elite divisions slouched in folding chairs while Marshals Director Dennis Haserot, Swim Director Jan War, Bike Director Nick Rott, Transition Coordinators Joe and Sharron Ackles,
and a few others took turns holding forth on the most important race rules. The dominant theme of the presentations was outside assistance to athletes during the race from friends, family, supporters, and spectators, which was forbidden in all forms. None of the race officials was heard to utter the word “crackdown,” but that was what many of the gathered athletes understood—that the officials had agreed to crack down this year on the illegal provision of nutritional, equipment-related, and even informational aid from race watchers.

  Brian Hughes, fresh-faced assistant to Mark’s agent, Charlie Graves, who had chaperoned Mark to the meeting, listened to the harping with consternation. Before leaving the mainland Brian had bought a small American flag at a Hallmark store, having hatched a plan to hand the symbol to Mark near the end of the race in the event that he won. Brian thought the gesture would be good for Mark’s image. But he now saw that it might be very bad for Mark’s chances of avoiding disqualification. In any case, Mark had received the idea tepidly, perhaps out of superstition. Grip had counted his chickens before they’d hatched before—and wound up with egg on his face.

  At the end of the meeting the athletes handed in their numbered transition bags—the bags of cycling clothes that would await them in the swim-bike transition area on the pier and the bags of running clothes that would await them in the bike-run transition area in the parking lot of the Kona Surf Hotel.

  Outside the King Kam, preparations for the race were moving apace. The finish-line arch was under construction smack in the middle of Ali’i Drive. A complex network of fencing and partitions was being erected on the pier. These images sent swarms of butterflies fluttering through Dave’s and Mark’s stomachs as they walked their separate ways. It was getting close.

  Dave had almost escaped the triathlete-packed area unmolested when a giant man with a bushy beard lumbered toward him, shouting his name.

  “Hi, Dave! I’m John Boyer!” the big man boomed, towering over the six-foot-one-inch legend.