What stuff does it take to race an Ironman Triathlon? Start with why.
Recently I went to a new yoga place in Palm Desert. The first thing the front desk guy says to me – are you an Ironman? Well, yes, how did you know that? I recognized the name.
I smile politely, offer a few words of encouragement. I explain how anyone can do one because that’s what I always say to people because people always say they want to do one but can’t.
That always gets me, the “I have always wanted to do that but can’t” thing, because that’s 100% not true. You don’t really want to do one or you would.
You just don’t want it enough. That’s what I really think. And that’s ok.
But what I say – especially in Palm Desert – is: there is a Half Ironman every December in La Quinta that is arguably the easiest Half Ironman on the planet because the bike is so flat and so fast and the weather is so perfect that time of year. But they don’t really want to hear that, do they? They just want to say they want to do one.
The last time I had this exact conversation was with the drive thru guy at In N Out in Indio and I actually think he meant it because he knew about the La Quinta Half Ironman.
That’s not the point of this post. The point? I recognized the name. That’s the point.
Now let’s be clear, no one recognized my name. I’m a narcissist but I am a practical narcissist and there are like 10 triathletes in the world that other triathletes have heard of and there are like 0 triathletes in the world that non-triathletes have heard of, so in that sense I am right up there with Kristian Blummenfelt or Lucy Charles-Barclay. See, you’ve never heard of them but you are confused why her name is Charles Barkley. But it is.
So no the kid had never heard my name but what maybe tipped him off was the backpack that said Ironman. Or the water bottle that screamed Ironman. Also the 2 Ironman tattoos.
But it did send my mind down the track of my journey in the sport from auspicious beginnings to this new place where I talk about triathlon in therapy as if triathlon and I were in couples counseling.
I hadn’t intended to post this one for awhile but the timing felt right, so why not.
My Triathlon Journey
Triathlon began for me in June 2005. Some friends signed up for the local Redondo Beach Triathlon. I borrowed the bike of a friend’s wife; I knew how to swim, generally; I could run fast but did not train. What could go wrong?
This was a short course race, probably 500 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run I am just guessing here but that sounds right.
When it’s your first one, it may as well be the Ironman World Championship. Along those lines, I invited my mother to come watch, she saw me start the swim.
She did not see me finish the swim. I took so long in the swim, probably 15-20 minutes for a 500 meter swim (note if you were walking you could probably go faster on your hands and knees) that she presumed she missed me.
But I did finish that swim in boardshorts and got on the bike (also in boardshorts with no shirt, things were looser then) and I probably rode a 12 mile bike in 40 minutes on that lady’s bike. I got off the bike in boardshorts, put in my ear buds (again, looser times) and probably ran a 20 minute 5k, if memory serves. Let’s pretend that this is accurate and let’s round some numbers and let’s say I completed that race in 90 minutes. 90 minutes. For context the winner is probably an hour or so. It’s quite probable I came in near the bottom and if I couldn’t run like that, probably last.
So you’d think that’s that. Check that off the list, correct.
Not at all.
The next day I did a little research for the hardest triathlon there is and what comes up but the Ironman. I had heard of this Ironman but it seemed mythological like a centaur or eating 50 hot dogs in 10 minutes kind of thing. And I also thought there was only one, in Hawaii and that you needed to answer riddles to get in. But to my surprise there was more than one, in fact there were many and you only needed money and the ability to register.
But I’d only done that one race yesterday so I did the sensible thing. I didn’t rush into it.
Diving Headfirst into Ironman
I signed up for Ironman Couer d’ Alene because it was exactly one year away in June 2006. I mean, a whole year. What could go wrong?
Let’s recap – I didn’t know how to swim other than how to not drown, I did not own a bike, didn’t have a training plan, I didn’t understand the sport at all, I had never really played any sport consistently, I could barely walk a straight line (we will get into the “Very Special Episode” about my brain cancer another time) but I could run really fast and was quite possibly a literal insane person and I signed up. There was the first problem.
Ironman is really expensive. I was used to a $40 5k type thing; that registration was probably $400 at the time. And that was just the steak – I needed appetizers, sides and dessert; I need a coach, a swim coach, a bike, a wetsuit and it would turn out – I needed to get some more races in over the next year.
So I could write a whole blogpost about the next year, but maybe just watch the training montage in Rocky IV. I’m Rocky, not Ivan Drago.
I worked 10 miles from home, I figured if I rode to/from work each day 5 days a week, that was a 100 mile ride. I lived in Hermosa Beach and would run to Manhattan Beach about a mile pier to pier, put my keys and wallet in a plastic bag, tape that plastic bag under my shorts in a little ball and swim back to Hermosa. I mean that’s a brick.
I tried joining a Masters Swim program but they didn’t make a lane 17 and I really didn’t have the money to get swim lessons, not to mention that I was put off when the coach suggested the boardshorts I wore were a parachute and I should wear a speedo. I will never wear a speedo was my reply, I’d rather be dead (spoiler: I’m not dead).
Through it all I was on that lady’s bike and did find myself getting faster on those 10 mile rides and I was still running. I trained that way for around 9 months and that following March I competed in the Half Ironman in Oceanside. A Half Ironman if you don’t know – 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run.
All that Rocky training showed up that day as I would finish in 5:21 (37’ Swim, 2:51 Bike, 1:44 Run). The swim and bike are objectively pedestrian in the sport, but not for me. That was outstanding all things considered and my run continued to be my strength.
Needless to say I was hooked. I got that ego boost from a job well done and had learned to love the process as much as the result. I went into my Ironman with confidence that I may just compete on the day. I mean if I could go 5:21 in a Half and had a few more months to train, surely I could do better than just doubling my time, maybe a 10:30 result is doable?
Narrator: Brian was very, very wrong about that. So very wrong.
An Ironman, for the record, is double a half Ironman as anyone with a kindergartner’s grasp of math would expect – 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run. Difficulty wise, it is 3-4x harder than a Half Ironman.
Now to this day I look back on that Ironman with great fondness. My parents hadn’t gotten divorced too long before this, my brothers had finished college and were starting life as adults and I had them and my mom with me. The town was beautiful and the people were nice. I did not get robbed nor did I ever fear for that. That’s about all I can say that was good.
Now the bad, meaning the race. The day began when the announcement came out that the water was so cold that we had the option to skip the swim. I did not fly here to skip the swim.
I probably should have skipped that swim, that swim took me 80 minutes. 80 minutes is a long time in cold water. The bike took me over 6 hours and the run? The run that I am so good at, that’s so natural for me? Well that took me over 4 hours and if I recall there were times when my brother ran next to me in flip flops. That part is cool personally and demoralizing athletically. Bottom line? 11:49. Brian Melekian, you are a really SLOW Ironman, that’s what he said or at least what I heard.
Now THAT should be it, right? I mean I did the insane, the nearly impossible and I had also shown that I wasn’t particularly great at it, time to call it.
Not even a little, because somewhere deep down I knew I had something to not only prove but also that that thing, that deficiency was about way more than athletics – it was about not really liking myself very much, it was about something either broken or missing inside of me, like building an Ikea TV stand and finding one piece too many or too few. It’s never going to be quite right but if you just lean one side of it against the wall, it’s good enough I suppose.
And I also knew that it might just be possible to outrun that deficiency. So in 2007, I got weird.
2007, World Championships & A Few Moments of a Job Well Done
In 2007 I would go back to Oceanside and turn that 5:21 (37/2:51/1:44) into 5:09 (36/2:46/1:40). I started showing up in the top 30, maybe 20 at this point and I started caring about things like World Championships. I just missed a spot with that result, so a few months later I raced in Ensenada when there was a Half Ironman there, took 7th and got a spot to the Worlds later that year in Clearwater.
I even had an article written about me in the local paper.
Over the years since these halcyon days I have won a few running races overall, won my Age Group at a few triathlons, ran a sub-3 hour marathon, narrowly missed qualifying for Kona at a Full Ironman, took podium spots at some pretty big races, but nothing may ever compare to my performance that day in Clearwater.
No one needs to read a full race report about a day 18 years ago, but the bottom line is that I turned in a performance I will probably never find again – against 2000 of the World’s best triathletes, I took 600th – finishing in 4:50 on a 34’ swim, 2:20 bike (top 100 overall), 1:45 run.
That day – November 10, 2007 – will always remain one of the best days of my life. It was also a day that I would point to when the inferiority complex transitioned to egomania.
Did I say I got weird in 2007? No, I got WEIRD after that.
The 70.3 World Championships in Clearwater, FL convinced me that I had a real chance to do something in the sport and it was time to go all in. I left my job, got certified as a coach and launched my own triathlon community, TNS (Team Next Step).
I picked up a few sponsors and went all in on the life, swimming, running and riding 100’s of miles per week. It was also around this time that I met Jim Lubinski. I met Jim on a ride up and down PCH and a lunch afterwards. Didn’t think too much of it until I parked my car at a race the next week and he was parked next to me. We chatted a bit and after the race I came back to my car and he had left a note on it. From there we would go on to become pals and training partners for the next year or so.
Jim is one of the more interesting people you could ever meet. He was a former collegiate and pro hockey player who would eventually go on to become a decorated pro triathlete who now runs one of the largest triathlon communities around, Tower 26 and happens to be my coach but at the time we ran around together he drove a Chrysler minivan and sold some set of potions and lotions for Big Pharma.
Our big race of 2008 was Ironman Arizona. After my debacle in Couer de Alene, I had learned a lot, beginning with the concept of training your limiter. There are a ton of triathlon-trading-life lessons crossovers, but training your limiters is one of the biggest.
I could run and I could run fast. Without much training I had won races of almost every distance from 5k to Marathon. To be fair, my marathon victory gets full credit to Jim who literally stopped 10 feet from the finish to let me win because that’s just the kind of guy he is. But the point is, I was a fast runner and it was super tempting to just run. And by this point my cycling was catching up. I began entering pure cycling races and getting my ass kicked but showing up and competing.
But swimming? No, swimming was just not there. I was coming out of the water in the back and tired. I was getting punched and swam over and frustrated. So training your limiter means swim – and swim more. By now it meant hiring a coach and focus on what was broken and get better at it. Don’t just spend time running and riding and feeding the ego; it meant swimming in lane 8 and then lane 7 and maybe lane 6 and putting in the work. It was thousands and thousands of yards per week and I did it.
In November 2008 I was about as well trained as I would ever be, certainly more than I ever had been and Jim and I drove out to Arizona and we RACED. I would turn in a 10:09 that day, on a 1:16/5:06/3:37, let that sink in – 22 mph on the bike, 8 minute miles on the run. From a nearly 12 hour Ironman in 2006 to a nearly 10 hour race in 2008.
I would also like to note here that although Jim would race a 10:01 that day – his 1:15 swim and 5:20 bike meant that for the first few miles on the run I was ahead of him. I have held on to that memory to this day. But also, he ran a 3:19 marathon that day and I have not BEEN anywhere near him since.
So at this point I have learned how to race; my triathlon community is up and running; things can only go up from here, right?
You’d think so, wouldn’t you. But if you have gleaned any themes in these early posts, it’s contrarian, dare I say self-destructive, behavior. And along those lines, I walked away from it.
Walking Away
Why? Fear. In this case, fear of financial insecurity and ruin. You have to remember this was 2008 and I had no job. Why did Jim succeed in triathlon and I didn’t? Was it just God-given talent? No, we both had it. Jim is supremely confident in all situations, despite all facts to the contrary working against him.
No, it was about attitude, desire and making decisions. Jim never gives up. Me? I am supremely frightened in many situations despite all facts to the contrary. Jim doesn’t think it’s all going to work out, he knows it. He knows it and he wills it. Me, I just presume it’s all going to fall apart unless I violently control every single aspect of every single situation. Unless I have spreadsheets to inventory my spreadsheets.
So in 2009 I was offered a job back in professional sports, my first industry out of college and the money was good and there was travel and I took it. One day I was swimming every morning with our group and having breakfasts and headed out to ride PCH on 50 mile weekday rides and by the next week I was on flights to Orlando and Virginia Beach and my favorite, Omaha. And yes, I tried to make both things work, but there was just no way to do both well. I’d get my training in on the road but it was never going to be the same. And just as fast as it started, it stopped.
And in 2011 I moved from LA to San Diego and I left it all behind. I raced an Ironman that year – St George – in one of the last years they would ever hold a full Ironman there and it was an absolute disaster. The travel and the move and the split lives – it just didn’t work. I’d killed the momentum, the magic was gone. And when I stopped and looked back at it years later, I realized what I’d done and why I’d done it and who I’d done it to and I was filled with deep regret. At some point, I reconnected with Jim and I began to try to explain how terrible I felt about just leaving and he stopped me about two words in and said – we’re good man. And that was that.
There were some highlights – my sub 3 hour marathon in 2012, Boston Marathon in 2017. But in 2015 during a Half Marathon in Indianapolis, my left leg just stopped working. When I say it stopped working, I mean it stopped working. It seized up and I fell over, in the middle of a race. To this day I don’t like thinking about it. I carried on and it didn’t happen again, until it did. And again and again. After a lot of health insurance back and forth I ended up at a chiropractor’s office looking at X Ray’s that showed quite clearly that 3 of my discs (L4-L5-S1) are essentially 1 big disc because there is just no space left between them. And now my nerves don’t work properly and so when I run I never know what kind of a day I am going to have. I can run a marathon, I can run 26 yards, it doesn’t matter. If my discs are acting up that day, there’s a good chance I am going to fall over when I run, or at least stumble.
So really, when I left LA in 2009 to take that job, I really left the sport altogether. I left the magic because I let real life take over. I let fear and pragmatism substitute for a dream. I traded promise for a paycheck. Some, most, would say I did the right thing. Sure, probably. There is no money in triathlon. But man, was it fun and I was good at it.
All of this probably sounds suspiciously like regret, shame, pain, you pick the negative emotion. And for a while, it was. There’s a whole lot of ground I am not covering here about that time from 2009-2019 but yes, there was some pain, regret and shame.
A couple of things happened in 2017 though, that would turn it around. First, I got sober. Second, I met the woman I would marry. Both of those deserve their own posts – and will get them – but needless to say when the pain of the disease outweighs the pain of the cure, you make a change.
And in 2019 I got back on the bike and raced the Half Ironman in La Quinta. The day before the race, I parked my car and headed over to the packet pick-up and who was I parked next to?
Jim. Everything happens for a reason.
And I won’t tell you that that race solved all my problems and that I was back, that’s the Hollywood ending. But I will tell you is that at some point on that run I stopped (repeat, I stopped during a race), ran to my wife and broke down in tears as I thanked her for giving me this gift back, because between the sobriety and marriage I felt like I found that missing Ikea TV stand piece and now I raced because I actually loved it.
And now, writing this and reflecting on what was, what wasn’t, what might have been, I can’t help but ask myself if I am just the kid at the yoga studio saying I could never have done that.
Yes, I could have done that. I just didn’t want it enough.
And that’s ok.
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