For triathletes, the Ironman World Championship in Kona Hawaii is the pinnacle event of the season. The Holy Grail. Triathlon’s Super Bowl. Kona is the place to be on the second Sunday in October. To race in Kona is to be counted amongst the fittest people on the planet, contesting the toughest single day in sport. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.

My old friend, we’ll call him Doug, found himself in pursuit of the elusive Kona Q. Doug was a natural runner with a beautifully fluid running gait. For several seasons he committed to improving his swim and his bike; his run was his weapon.

The ’98 Ironman Canada was set firmly within Doug’s sights to qualify. I met up with Doug at the iconic Sicamous, the famed meeting place during race week at Ironman Canada. He looked fit and he had good energy. Unfortunately, ‘98 was one of the hottest years in memory and claimed a record number of DNFs (Did Not Finish), with Doug’s name among them. Doug had succumbed to the oppressive heat, and somewhere out on the bike course he made a deal with himself to pull out of the race. He arrived at T2 and immediately surrendered his timing chip. Only 20 minutes later, Doug had regained his composure and was ready to go. Doug’s strength was the run, and given the high attrition rate that day he could have run himself into contention. If only he had given himself more time in T2…. This was the thought that haunted Doug.

The sting of that decision lingered over the following long, cold winter. Doug recommitted himself to a Kona Q in ’99. He trained with singular purpose; his DNF served as rocket fuel for the mission. Fast forward to race week in Aug ‘99 where I met up with Doug, again at the Sicamous. He had the confidence of a gunslinger. He had his airline tickets to Kona and his condo booked and paid for. All he needed was to qualify.

Not two-thirds of the way through the bike course Doug stopped at a roadside port-o-john for a nature break. Low on blood sugar, he fumbled his way out of the port-o-john, wrestling various body parts back into his tri-shorts. Like a punch-drunk cage fighter Doug staggered directly into the oncoming cyclists and was t-boned – hard. Sadly, Doug’s day was over. Again.

But the story isn’t done. Since Doug had plane tickets and condo reservations in hand, he’d make a vacation out of it. Why not? Doug was finally going to Kona albeit to watch, not race, the biggest game in the sport. His travel itinerary required that he spend a few days in Honolulu before flying to Kona. So he had registered for a sprint distance triathlon in Honolulu. He woke up race morning and made his way down to what was supposed to be transition. Unbeknownst to Doug, the race had been cancelled due to poor registration numbers. On top of that, a tropical storm had come through the area and there had been flooding. But Doug wasn’t the only one to show up race morning. There was a handful of intrepid souls who hadn’t got notice of the cancellation, either. So Doug and his new friends decided to do the course together. The group exited the water, mounted their bikes and headed out on to the unmarked bike course. While descending a busy, wet highway, Doug felt his front wheel slide out from under him and he hit the pavement. Damage included a broken clavicle and a shattered elbow, amidst some pretty nasty road rash. Doug did not have US medical insurance, so he was quickly bandaged up before limping his way to the airport to return home to Canada. The closest that Doug ever got to Kona was seeing it through the aircraft’s window at 20,000 feet, wrapped up like a mummy, wondering to himself where it all went wrong. As the song goes, “you’ve got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them”. Good judgement matters.