Reaching My Full Potential and How You Can TooSample

“You Are an Ironman!”

After Chris finished the 2020 Olympic triathlon in January, I asked Dan, his coach, whether he thought Chris could do an IRONMAN event.

“Absolutely,” he said without missing a beat.

“Okay, let’s give it a run,” I replied. Then I gave Dan my little speech, sharing things I have learned from experience. “If we go on this journey, people are going to attack you. They’re going to attack me. They’re going to say things about how unreasonable and even cruel we are. They are going to do it from a place of love and protection for Chris, but they are going to think we are going too far. What we have to do is trust that we’re doing the right thing.”

“Sure, no problem. I understand,” Dan said. I could tell that he did not seem to entirely believe me, especially about the pushback we would get. Dan’s own life experiences taught him to trust himself to overcome any barriers, and he saw no reason why Chris could not do the same. A man after my own heart.

As soon as we announced our plans, the whole world seemed to turn on us at once. This included our contacts at Special Olympics, the people we knew from the Tri Club, Chris’s other coaches, and even his mom and sister. Their opposition to the notion of Chris doing an IRONMAN triathlon was the same as they vocalized when I proposed his doing an Olympic triathlon a year earlier. Sure, they loved seeing Chris making friends and getting incredibly fit, but did we have to kill him to do it?

They had a point. Any triathlon poses a level of risk, and triathlons have claimed their share of lives. As recently as 2019, two men died during the swimming leg of an IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon in Madison, Wisconsin.

But their concern mainly served to confirm that we were doing the right thing. We were about to go against conventional thinking during a pandemic. In terms of significant historical events, this would be our version of the Great Depression and World War II.

Dan stuck to his guns and defended our plan, arguing that Chris could learn to become an IRONMAN competitor just like other athletes. Of course, there were no more guarantees that Chris could do it than there were that anybody else could. We were not about to nip things in the bud in the service of my old nemesis “being realistic.” Besides, Chris had been the first competitor with Down syndrome to complete an Olympic triathlon. Why would we possibly want to stop there?

Our first milestone would come May 9, 2020, at the COVID 70.3. The event was our defiance of COVID-19 consuming our society. We were going to take the race, which was half the distance of the ultra-distance, head-on. 

Chris and Dan did the event with some other members of the club. As this was not an officially sanctioned IRONMAN event, there were only about one hundred spectators, significantly fewer than the thousands that show up at official races. However, a local news station was on hand to capture the event, and several other media outlets picked up the story. Chris completed the COVID 70.3 triathlon in 8 hours and 25 minutes. If we extrapolated this to a full distance event, Chris’s time would have been 16:50, keeping him under the maximum time of seventeen hours allowed for completing the race. So far, so good, I thought. Still, it was only half the distance, so we knew that if Chris wanted to maintain this pace at a full distance event, he had his work cut out for him between May and November.

I believe that God has a plan for every one of us, a plan He reveals to us in His own good time. If I had any doubts about whether God’s plans for Chris included doing an IRONMAN triathlon on November 7, 2020, they ceased when the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in every full distance competition in the world being canceled except one: the Panama City Beach event set for November 7, 2020—the exact event for which Chris and Dan were signed up. I still get choked up when I think about the odds of this happening and what a profound blessing it was for Chris to be able to have a platform on which to show the fruits of his hard work. But then again, the IRONMAN triathlon phenomenon has always produced wonderful examples of overcoming adversity.

IRONMAN Group website explains, “Today, hundreds of thousands of triathletes from around the world have challenged themselves to prove to friends, loved ones, and even just themselves that ‘Anything is Possible.’”

Respond

What impossible situation have you faced?

Did you trust God with that situation? What was the outcome?

Prayer

Father, thank You for making all things possible when I trust You.