Ironwoman
A typical workout for Lisa Dickinson, career services director for the USF School of Law, is no lousy one-mile swim, hour bike ride, or five-mile run. What would be enough for the casual recreator doesn’t even approach her regimen.
That’s because Dickinson, who is a triathlete (someone who competes in endurance races featuring swimming, biking, and running), normally puts in two-mile swims followed by 60 to 90 miles on her bike or 15-mile runs. But even that kind of exercise doesn’t approach what Dickinson did on July 28, the day of her second Ironman triathlon. Dickinson swam 2.4 miles, rode her bike 112 miles, and ran a full marathon—26.2 miles—as part of one of the toughest organized endurance contests in the world.
“The last 10 minutes to the finish line is the whole reason to do it,” said Dickinson, who competed in her first Ironman in 2000. “It’s so exhilarating.” Dickinson finished in 16 hours, 48 minutes.
Dickinson competed as part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program. The approximately 75 members of the Bay Area team are competing in a number of Ironmans this year in memory of Louie Bonpua, a USF alum and former team member, who died of leukemia earlier this year. Diagnosed in 1997, Bonpua managed to complete an Ironman himself, with the help of a blood transfusion, just months before his death.
“If I wasn’t doing it for the team, I don’t think it would mean as much,” Dickinson said. “But we have the added benefit and inspiration that come from the honorees (people with cancer to whom the team dedicates its efforts each season).”
Each team member must raise $7,500 for the cause. In return, they get professional coaching and the camaraderie that comes with getting up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday to swim an hour or more in the Bay’s frigid waters.
“The team made it a lot easier to train,” Dickinson said. “The hardest part was getting up and going to meet the team. Once you were there, you didn’t back down.”
Dickinson, 31, put in about 20 training hours per week. At exactly five feet tall, the petite athlete said she never imagined she would be contemplating her second Ironman until she did her first marathon in 1997. “That’s when I got hooked,” she said.
From there, it was a steady advancement through more marathons and then a half Ironman, to finally her first Ironman, in Canada, which she finished in 16 hours and 43 minutes.
“You want to see how far you can go,” she said. “Because I’ve never reached a point where I couldn’t go on.”
This was her last Ironman, however. She said she has had her fill of endurance racing for now. “The bike course was tough but it was loads of fun,” she said.
Because each event has a time limit, speed is essential. Cycling is the hardest part, Dickinson said. To allay nervousness during the race, she tried to visualize finishing or concentrated on keeping herself moving.
“It’s amazing to me what anyone can do when they put their mind to it,” Dickinson said. “Because when people see me they don’t think of me as a runner or an athlete. I’m just an average person.”
|
