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  Against the Odds

  Text Copyright © 2013 John Pendergrass

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eISBN: 978-1-57826-427-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Cover Design by Carolyn Kasper / DCDesigns

  Interior Design by Carolyn Kasper / DCDesigns

  IRONMAN and 70.3 are registered trademarks of World Triathlon Corporation.

  www.hatherleighpress.com

  v3.1

  Polly, John, Eric, and Patricia

  THIS IS not a serious book. There are no deeper meanings or hidden revelations buried in its pages. Everything really did happen just as I described, but I’ve changed a few names to avoid embarrassing anyone.

  I’m making the standard disclaimer that all mistakes belong to me. Hopefully they are few and far between.

  As much as possible I’ve avoided the metric system, even though it’s standard for international competition and for much of the rest of the world.

  Cover

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  FOREWORD by Brett Favre

  Map

  CHAPTER 1 China on My Mind

  CHAPTER 2 Looking for a Challenge

  CHAPTER 3 “Whoever Finishes First, We’ll Call Him the IRONMAN®”

  CHAPTER 4 Triathlon 101

  CHAPTER 5 The IRONMAN® Mystique

  CHAPTER 6 In the Pool and On the Road

  CHAPTER 7 Adventures in South America: Brazil

  CHAPTER 8 No Country for an Old Man: Switzerland

  CHAPTER 9 Hurricanes and Hip Fractures

  CHAPTER 10 Back on the Road: South Africa

  CHAPTER 11 A Land of Great Surprises: New Zealand

  CHAPTER 12 A Crowd in the Desert: Arizona

  CHAPTER 13 The Sixth and Final Stop: China

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  I’M NO expert on triathlons, though my wife has been a triathlete for the last several years. Running I understand—I’ve done a fair bit of it throughout my 20 years in the NFL—but once you add swimming and biking into the mix, the whole thing starts to look a lot more daunting. Then you figure out how long the distances are—about 2,500 football fields worth—and you start to understand why the title of “IRONMAN®” is so coveted, and why the finishers are so respected.

  What I am an expert at is going to work every day, doing your best, and never giving up. I know all about playing hard and having fun. I also know about devoting all of my time, energy, and passion to a sport whose challenges are their own rewards. And I know about the overwhelming feeling of accomplishment that comes from achieving something that everyone told you was impossible.

  I have been fortunate enough to enjoy one of the longest careers in the NFL and have experienced first-hand how it feels to grow older with your sport. I’m living proof that preconceptions about what a man is capable of based on his age aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

  Reading Against the Odds, I found something in John Pendergrass that I could identify with. When I wrestled with one of the hardest decisions of my life—whether or not to leave a sport that I’ve dedicated my life to—there were so many people who felt the need to add their two cents. People told me that it was time for me to step aside, that retirement was the only option. And I know that John must have heard the same judgments, offered in the same tone from his family and friends about why he should give up on his goals.

  The phrase, “you’re only as old as you feel,” is tossed around a lot, usually by people who are starting to feel older than they’d like. But this is actually very true. It’s a truth that both John and I have learned from our own experiences. At age 60, when most people spend their leisure time riding in a golf cart or sitting in front of a television, John Pendergrass chose to hit the road, traveling to six continents and competing in six IRONMAN® Triathlons. He has collected enough aches and pains and racked up enough frequent flyer miles for a man half his age.

  Against the Odds is a remarkable story, a tale of courage and perseverance told with humor and honesty. There must be thousands of athletes who have finished an IRONMAN race faster than John Pendergrass, but there can’t be very many who have had as interesting a journey.

  — BRETT FAVRE

  HAIKOU, CHINA, has to be one of the hottest places on earth. It’s early March, a time when much of the world is still slumbering through winter, eagerly anticipating the coming days of spring. Here, at the bottom of China, things seem to have skipped into summer. It’s already in the nineties, and each day is a little warmer than the day before.

  I’m in town for the 2010 IRONMAN® China, an endurance event that packs a month’s worth of swimming, biking, and running into a single nonstop day. It starts at the break of dawn with a 2.4 mile open-water swim, continues through the day with a 112 mile bike and finishes with a 26.2 mile run. An IRONMAN Triathlon is a physical and mental challenge unlike anything else in the world, the culmination of months of training and preparation.

  Haikou is the capital of Hainan, an island province nestled in the tropical South China Sea at the southern tip of mainland China. Not many people travel this far to do an IRONMAN race, but for me it’s another opportunity to get a little off the beaten path and try something different and difficult in a distant land.

  This is my sixth IRONMAN® Triathlon and each one has been on a different continent. There may be a few other people who have done this, but there can’t be many. The travel and training take their toll. IRONMAN Triathlons have a way of dominating your life, destroying your free time, whittling down your bank account. It’s a sport that seems to invite and reward obsession, but even the obsessed can grow weary and exhausted. Still, some people hang on longer than others. In my travels I’ve run across athletes who seem to have dedicated their entire life to the IRONMAN ethic. They show a frightening single-mindedness. Their families and jobs fade into the background as they train like demons, pounding out the miles, seemingly oblivious to pain and suffering.

  These folks all have a few things in common. They’re all younger than I am, stronger than I am, smarter than I am. I’m a late-starter, out of place and over my head in a young man’s game.

  At age sixty, when most men are looking at their IRA, hoping that it’s going up, and checking their PSA, hoping that it’s staying down, I started doing IRONMAN Triathlons.

  I’m probably the first person in his sixties to ever try six IRONMAN Triathlons on six continents, but who knows? When you’re old, the times are slow and the records are sparse. At my age, the rewards come in the form of indelible memories rather than record performances. Six decades is a long time, it’s a time of life when many people disappear. I’m happy to have made it this far, glad to still be moving about in the land of the living.

  The Chinese agree: they consider me a fortunate man. Six is a lucky number in China, a symbol of good fortune and smooth sailing. Six IRONMAN Triathlons, six continents, all in my sixties—666. I’ve got one of the luckiest numbers in the Middle Kingdom. The Chinese seem to infuse these sixes with a spiritual meaning, they see me as one of the chosen few.

  Brazil, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand, Arizona—
I’ve got plenty of time to reflect back on my previous IRONMAN® races. Most of my free moments here in China have been spent lying in my hotel room, soaking in sweat, wishing the air conditioner worked better. It’s a toasty 80 degrees in my room, maybe the Chinese don’t mind the heat or maybe the good AC units have all been shipped back home to Walmart.

  I’ve got an intractable case of jet lag and I’m forced to spend many of my bonus waking hours hovering near the toilet, hoping my gastrointestinal problems work themselves out by race day. Sometimes when I finally manage to doze off, the pain in my right shoulder awakens me and reminds me that my rotator cuff has seen its better days.

  My list of grievances seems to be self-replenishing. If one problem gets a little better, a new one pops up to take its place. Lesser complaints become major calamities as new troubles move to the front.

  This trip to China seems to be the exception in my IRONMAN journeys; usually I’m a good traveler. I enjoy meeting new people, seeing places I’ve read about for years, eating different foods. I try to take my time, reduce my expectations, and make it a point not to get upset if things turn out differently than I had hoped. Jet lag is always there, but normally it disappears by the second day. I eat simply for a couple of days before the race, stay away from uncooked food, and drink plenty of bottled fluids. By race morning I’m usually feeling good, raring to get started, and anxious to get done. I never have a problem cranking up the energy and optimism.

  This trip is different. China has a special set of problems.

  I’m staying at a resort hotel fronting on the South China Sea, some five miles or so outside of town. It’s not a bad spot; they charge me more for one night than a local peasant makes in a couple of months. Like most places in China, the tap water isn’t drinkable so I have to boil it in my coffeepot. There’s a small refrigerator in my room that must have been built at the same factory that made the air conditioning unit. It hums loudly and drowns out the television, but it doesn’t cool. Here at the resort, I am part of a captive audience. When I eat or drink at the hotel or visit the gift shop, I pay rates that would make Donald Trump blush.

  There are some good points, though. The hotel employees are very friendly. They like to practice their English and it gives me the opportunity to try out the few Chinese phrases I’ve learned. I think my Southern drawl throws them for a loop; it’s a far cry from the elegant British accent heard on the BBC. Plus, it’s nice to see that each day the end of the roll of toilet paper in my room is folded into a perfect triangle. That’s something that never happens at home.

  Besides, I always try to stay positive. You never know; fortune can come in odd disguises. Some days I lie in bed and watch a Chinese docu-drama about Chairman Mao (it is on TV every day). I smile, toast the Great Helmsman with a large glass of freshly boiled water, and prepare for my own upcoming Long March.

  On other days, when my body cooperates, I ride from the hotel into town, passing peasants in straw hats stooped and working in the rice fields. It’s a glimpse back in time, a look at agricultural techniques that probably haven’t changed for centuries. The nation of China is a strange mixture. Certain parts of the country have the feel of a place that has only been built recently, while other parts seem to date from the time of Confucius. The very old and the very new are side by side.

  Many of the Chinese fill the roads on bicycles, scooters, pedicycles, broken-down carts, old trucks—anything on wheels is placed into action. The traffic in China is wild and woolly, a game of vehicular pinball. Automobiles are relatively new to the country. As one observer noted, the Chinese appear to have learned how to drive by watching The Dukes of Hazzard.

  Downtown Haikou is an almost impenetrable mass of people, crowds swarming at every angle. Everyone seems to be in continuous motion, chattering, bumping, staring, rarely stopping for more than a moment. There’s no concept of personal space in China. No one ever queues; if someone needs your spot, stand erect, steady your legs, and be prepared to push back.

  This vast number of human souls, this great swarm of mankind, is what strikes everyone who comes to China. Getting around is sometimes exhausting, often bewildering, always exciting.

  Haikou is closing in on a population of two million. China itself officially has 1.3 billion people, a fifth of the world’s population. Some think the real number is closer to a billion and a half. There are at least 90 cities in the country with a population of a million or more (by contrast, there are only nine in the United States). Many of the places are easily recognizable—Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hong Kong, but there are dozens with names that I’ve never heard of and couldn’t begin to pronounce, places like Zibo, Qiqihar, and Yantai.

  The streets of Haikou are a wonderland of the strange and exotic. The food stalls and small restaurants are filled with every type of produce known to man. Huge bags of tea, unrecognizable carcasses of unknown animals, large sacks of spices, strange-looking creatures from the sea, common weeds and grasses, bubbling pots of Lord knows what.

  In China when it comes to food, anything goes and nothing is wasted. Chicken heads, ox penises, pigeon brains, cow’s lung, they’re all there to sample if the mood strikes you.

  For a man with an unstable gastrointestinal tract, this is an olfactory overload, I need to tread lightly. Wisely, I decide to avoid the grilled dog meat, and look for a Pizza Hut instead.

  Things may seem a little strange here in China, but who am I to complain. The Chinese consider me, like most foreigners, to be a loathsome barbarian, a heathen out of place in their great civilized country.

  Besides, one man’s scorpion is another man’s sirloin steak.

  A few months ago this China trip sounded like a great idea. I had just returned from a race in Arizona and I was anxious to do my sixth and final IRONMAN race. IRONMAN China would be my fourth IRONMAN Triathlon in less than two years. It seemed as if I was in a constant training mode leading up to the IRONMAN race, I was spending more time with my bicycle than with my wife, and I constantly reeked of chlorine. My running shoes were becoming as worn, stretched, and beaten as my body. When I first got out of bed in the morning, my muscles and joints were stiff and immobile, almost petrified. My body felt like it had been beaten and left for dead; it was ready for the funeral home. I knew that I needed a break, but I hoped to squeeze in one final race and complete my six-continent journey.

  Stacking IRONMAN races in close succession is never a good choice at any age, but for me, I knew the clock was ticking fast. I wasn’t concerned about being the first old guy to try six continents, I simply knew that my days running IRONMAN races were numbered. I had gotten old and time had taken its toll. I’m on the weak side of sixty. It’s a decade of life when your body betrays you day by day. Simple tasks become complex, easy things become difficult. You’re never in as good a shape as you were last year, what you lose you never get back.

  If my body was a checking account, it would have to be marked “Overdrawn: Insufficient Funds.”

  Even though I was living close to the edge and courting disaster, I really wanted to go to China. Nostalgia never goes out of style for someone in their sixties and my Chinese trip had turned into an Oriental version of You Can’t Go Home Again, an opportunity to go four decades into the past and rediscover wartime experiences.

  I’m headed to Hainan Island for the 2010 IRONMAN China. Forty years ago, Hainan was a place I did my damnedest to stay away from. Back then if I had somehow wandered too far into the Far East I would have ended up as a permanent guest of the People’s Republic of China.

  In those distant days, when Richard Nixon was President, I was serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force. This was during the Vietnam War and my choice assignment was Da Nang Air Base in South Vietnam, barely a hundred and fifty miles southwest of Hainan. Most of my friends and classmates managed to skip the Vietnam conflict but I was a little slow in figuring things out. I looked up one day and there I was in Southeast Asia, as far away from Mississippi as a po
or man can get.

  My unit, the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing, was one of the USAF’s most decorated fighter wings with a record of service extending from World War II to the present time. Known as the “Gunfighters,” the 366th was one of the first fighter wings to be sent to Vietnam and was the very last one to leave.

  The Vietnam conflict, like all wars, had enough absurdity and tragedy to last a lifetime, but it had its exciting moments, too. During my tour in Vietnam, I lived with my fighter squadron and spent most of my time looking out for their health and safety, but I also logged 54 combat missions in the back seat of an F-4 Phantom. The Phantom was the workhorse fighter of the Vietnam War, a supersonic machine, full of thunder and thrust that practically exploded off the runway. It was the fastest thing in a fast-moving world, perfect for someone like me, very impressionable and too young to know better.

  In the back seat of an F-4, I was the navigator, radio operator, and weapons man, plus I got a lot of informal flying time. In Air Force parlance I was a GIB (Guy in the Backseat), a vital member of the two-man air crew. The other pilots and navigators were brave and fearless, but I was more of a curious coward, afraid of missing something exciting, anxious not to be left out.

  I was a budding navigator, and all navigators love maps. The island of Hainan sat like a lump of coal in the upper right-hand corner of my charts. It was worse than Hanoi, more dangerous than Haiphong. It might as well have been labeled “Hell.” Everyone knew that Hainan was a place to avoid at all costs. Invading Chinese airspace was never a part of any of our flight plans.

  Most of the combat missions I flew during my tour were in Laos, a part of the never-ending battle to keep men and material from coming from North Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh trail into South Vietnam. Some of our flights went to North Vietnam, and there the risks escalated greatly. The North was the worst place of all to fly. Anti-aircraft fire (AAA) went from a possibility to a near certainty. Flying up north was like winning a chance to play Russian roulette, an opportunity to at best break even. Since it was a disaster waiting to happen, a quick in and out of the country was always the safest choice. Hainan and the Chinese MIGs loomed just over the horizon, only a few minutes away. It doesn’t take long to cover 50 to 100 miles in a Mach 2 fighter.