Giving up on Kona, Boston?

In case you hadn't guessed, two of my life goals are to toe the respective starting lines in a couple of hallowed places — Kona, Hawaii, on the first Saturday in October after the full moon; Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on Patriot's Day. Those races would be the Ironman Triathlon World Championship, and the Boston Marathon.

Seriously, I'd put those two ahead of a lot of the "American dream" kind of goals — home ownership, marriage, children, retirement, being my own boss, etc. Yes, I'd rather do an 80-mile bike ride in the rain followed closely by a 10-mile run, than mow the grass, change a diaper, or go over spreadsheets with lots and lots of red numbers. OK, bad examples, but you catch my drift.

Those goals are rooted in my childhood, which obviously was not normal. It became apparent early on that I wasn't going to fill out my frame, that I was going to be lean for much of my life, that I didn't have much in the way of coordination, so I adjusted my sporting goals accordingly. Instead of wanting to throw the winning touchdown pass, I dreamed of a four-minute mile (one more goal that never got reached). Instead of coming to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth blah blah blah, I dreamed of turning the pedals in that lava desert on the Big Island. In junior high, when things got rough on a five-mile training run with my cross country team, I wondered how on earth I'd deal with the far more excruciating pain of mile 18 in the Natural Energy Lab. It started when I saw the Ironman on TV, realized I already did two of the three sports, and set that in my head forever.

So I did it many years later. I slacked off in early adulthood as I got in the groove of my newspaper career, stayed up too late, slept too late, and drank and worked too much. Once I got back into triathlons in 2002, the goal was Ironman. I did five of them over the course of six years (separated by a nice interval, of course), knowing full well most of the time that I'd finish well off where I needed to be. Whether it was crappy training or melting down mentally, every race short-circuited at some point and I'd stumble across the finish line, get my medal and shitty pizza, and go home, IT bands on fire.

Obviously, it's become cost-prohibitive as time has gone on. Ironman Florida cost me $325 in 2003, while Ironman Wisconsin cost me $625 in 2009. That's to say nothing of lodging and travel costs. There are more races, true, but they fill up faster and faster every year. The races themselves get faster, too. To give you an idea of how seriously I take this, I analyzed the finish times for the LAST Kona qualifier in my age group every year at Ironman Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The average time for the first six years of the race (2003-08) was 10h13m46s. In 2009, the last qualifier went 9:52:41, and in 2010 he went 9:49:13.

I guess it's silly since, according to some of the Internet literati, it's just a race. At the same time, two of the stupidest things I've ever read about Kona came from Slowtwitch. The first: "Kona's really not that big a deal. It's just a race. I've been there six times and it's so stupid how seriously people take it." Then why have you been there six fucking times if it's not that big a deal? The second: "You know, it's actually kind of a boring course. You take away the wind and the heat and it's not that hard." In 30 years on the Big Island (the race started in Oahu at Waikiki), you could "take away the wind and the heat" twice — once for the Iron War between Scott and Allen in '89, once when Luc Van Lierde set the current course record. Maybe there was another one recently, but those are the prime examples. Again, a ludicrous statement, and when I get there, I want the mumuku winds, the 100-degree heat radiating off the asphalt, the 2-3-foot seas, and the flower lei around my neck at the finish.

Or maybe I don't anymore.

This has been a rough month for my goals. First, the 2011 Boston Marathon sold out the day it opened for registration. I find it hard to believe that many people met the standards, but then again the race relaxed their standards in 1996 for the 100th to let more people experience Boston, and they haven't changed them since. When I was young and first learned I had to qualify for Boston, men under 40 pretty much had to break 3 hours. You can see now that's not the case. No word on whether the BAA would revisit its standards, but if I make the 3:15 standard for men my age anyway, the chances of getting in are insanely slim now. Even if the standards tighten up and I have to break 3 hours into my 40s, again, no guarantee I'd get in if I'm not quick enough on the mouse.

For Kona, just when the World Triathlon Corporation seems to have exhausted its store of stupid ideas (i.e., the rule that states pros must finish within 8 percent of the winning time to earn prize money, otherwise you're SOL; later rescinded), they do this:

Today World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) launches an exclusive athlete membership program called Ironman Access. In addition to other member benefits, the program will offer advance registration for Ironman events worldwide before entries open to the general public. Membership into Ironman Access is on a first-come, first-served basis and will close once it reaches capacity.

In addition to exclusive, advance registration, Ironman Access will offer perks including an official membership ID card; a second chance in the Ironman Lottery Program*; two VIP passes per registered event; a one-year subscription to LAVA Magazine; discounts on Ironman partner products at shopironman.com and at Ironman’s on-site event retail stores; and a 2010 Ford Ironman World Championship NBC broadcast DVD. Membership benefits are valid for one year starting from activation date. In order to take advantage of early event registration, membership must be current. The annual membership fee is $1,000 USD.

Basically, for a grand, you get to cut the line and register for as many events as you want. You already saw what one of these M-dot branded events costs, so consider that the $1K fee is on top of whatever entry fees you pay. Since most of these events sell out a year in advance, that $1K would save you the trouble of traveling to the race site and signing up there the next day. Not a bad deal if you can afford it, though it is only a yearly thing; you'd have to renew your membership every year at that cost, likely more given the state of things.

The topic has been beaten to death elsewhere. Simply, it's a money grab. The WTC sold out to a private equity firm in 2008. That firm is beholden to no one but shareholders — not customers (like us racers), not the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who make the events work, not the towns where the races take place, not even their employees. The shareholders demand more returns, product be damned, and they come up with shit like this. For once, the company saw the error of its ways, and rescinded the program within 24 hours. CEO Ben Fertic issued this mealy mouthed statement ("If you say we're wrong, we're wrong." Suuuure.), and like a good, chastened company, wiped the original release off the site.

This is where my social conscience wakes from its slumber. I try to do right by the world — buy organic, shop local, hug trees, save endangered species, support causes I believe in. That said, Ironman is my id taking over, my selfish nature manifesting itself in exercises in masochism (as if rooting for the Cubs wasn't enough). Truthfully, I enjoy running, swimming, and cycling (in order of favorites), and this is a way to test myself on a measured, catered course. But I don't feel like I can support this company (and it is a company, make no mistake) any more when they're trying to make their races a survival of the richest. I've thrown some serious coin at this silly dream, and the odds seem to get longer by the year. As of yesterday the plan was to give it one more shot in Coeur d'Alene in 2012, then abandon if I didn't make it. Now? I don't know. I just don't know.

So my options now are the stellar Rev3 series, or the Challenge series overseas. But those don't carry the carrot of Kona spots. Ironman star Luke McKenzie wondered on twitter if anyone would do M-dot races if there weren't Kona spots attached. I'd have to say no, no matter how far off I am from qualifying.

As for my goals of 50 states in both triathlon and marathon? The plan was only one marathon in Hawaii and Massachusetts, one triathlon in Hawaii; the 50 States Marathon Club will take Ironman marathons. Now? Looks like the Maui Marathon, the Cape Cod Marathon, and whatever triathlons I can find in those places. Sometimes it sucks to have a conscience, but at least I sleep well — most of the time.