[The purpose of this letter is to list the many factors that came together in 1977 that led the Founders of The Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon, Judy Collins and John Collins, to introduce long distance triathlon to Honolulu, Hawai’i in 1978.]
Why We Started the Iron Man (recorded in no particular order)
Let me count the Whys. As of 14 February 1977:
1. I, Judy Collins, wanted to introduce triathlon to Hawai’i on a long distance course in February 1978. I wanted the two of us to be in charge of an endurance triathlon in 1978 instead of remaining in charge of the annual sprint Run-Swim held each February. That contest was a dual meet between the Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club (M-PRRC) and the Waikiki Swim Club (WSC). We were in charge of the 1977 Run-Swim 12 days away. We had to move fast to get a new kind of event on the 1978 calendar of the Run and Swim Clubs.
2. We had discovered we did better in Long Slow Distance (LSD) events than in Sprint ones.
3. Going a very long distance in one sport was not as inviting to us as switching from one sport to another.
4. We were two weeks away from co-chairing a Run-Swim Sprint Event which we did not wish to become our annual responsibility.
5. As members of the Waikiki Swim Club and the Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club and as parents of teenagers who were competitive swimmers we were expected to take charge of an event on the sports calendar on O’ahu. A triathlon would satisfy all those family commitments.
6. Dr Jack Scaff at the Honolulu Marathon Clinic had urged us to find a running aerobic pace that made us feel that we could keep going forever.
7. We two were Captains of our 7 member relay teams who had run around the island in the Oahu Perimeter (140 mile) Relay on 5-6 February and we felt good about our accomplishments.
8. We were great fans of endurance events on the mainland and in the islands. In Hawai’i swimmers were swimming channels between the islands. Judy would be the first woman to swim between two Hawaiian Islands on 8 May 1977, Lanai to Maui. Runners were signing up for upcoming 50k and 100k events. John would do a 50k in May on a 4 mile loop and run on two relays at the same time. Judy would run on two relays in that ultra marathon event. As late-comers to recreational sport we were doing lifetime best times in every event we entered.
10. We Swimmers who also ran (Judy) and Runners who also swam (John) did the Waikiki Rough Water Swim on Labor Day Weekend, the Honolulu Marathon in mid-December and were looking for another long distance event to do.
11. I, Judy, imagined a triathlon endurance event to include the courses of the annual Waikiki Rough Water Swim and the annual Honolulu Marathon. John suggested the bicycle leg be most of the course of the annual bike club event around the island. It fit!
12. The longer we exercised at a steady pace, the better we performed.
13. We had working bicycles and had past long distance bicycling experience on the mainland and on Maui.
14. We liked the geography of circumnavigating the island as we had done in the O’ahu Perimeter Relays. The course was scenic and inviting.
The relays run course was on paved roads around the island plus the dirt road around Kaena Point. The triathlon bike course was shorter. That was because the route kept to the paved roads on the coast and across the island. That was about 112 miles. The swim, bike and run courses of the triathlon added up to the same amount as the traditional distance of the running relays course, about 140 miles. A good omen!
15. Our family – Michael, Kristin, Judy and John – had been in the first 10-leg run-bike-4-5 run/swims event to be called a triathlon, in 1974, about 10 miles total. It was fun. Kristin and Michael had been in the first Optimist Club of Coronado bike-run-swim-run triathlon in 1975, soon to become the longest running annual triathlon in the world.
16. We felt strong and were looking forward to something new to do on the island. Endurance events on the mainland required expensive air fare.
17. I thought the math of doing an around the island triathlon was exhilarating – doing all 3 events in one day equaled an island circumnavigation.
18. Doing all three of the premier endurance events in Honolulu in one day made the paperwork, the permissions, the participation, and the publicity an easy sell for us. Our planning was “off the shelf,” already done.
19. When we left the house that night I had walked past the Run-Swim Sprint Dual Meet trophy. It was on the mantel over our fireplace, a running shoe suspended in a life ring. We were in charge of that Run-Swim event, 2 weeks away. I was not a sprinter. By the next year I wanted us to put on an event that I would like to do, a very long triathlon.
20. We had focused on Honolulu Marathon training from March to December. I liked the idea that the triathlon diminished the marathon. That long run would be just one more thing to do after a long day of swimming and bicycling. We would be finishing the marathon in the cool of the evening.
21. We had been fans of long, slow, distance events since before we had moved to Honolulu in 1975. The year 1976 was+edits the bicentennial year of the U.S.A. Bike magazines had information for families to follow to bike across America. John would work with a colleague whose wife and two sons rode horses across America in the bicentennial year. In those years a prize was offered for the first bicycle-powered airplane to cross the English Channel. Long distance adventures were very popular.
22. I had been mapping out triathlon courses in my head since our family was in the first of the modern triathlons in 1974 in San Diego. I had fallen in love with bike-run-swim events. My memory of childhood adventures was of swimming, running and bicycling in Honolulu HI and in Coronado CA.
Post Script: What happened later when our memories of Honolulu were triggered. We had closed up our boxes of paperwork from our Honolulu years on 16 October 1979 before we moved from Honolulu to the mainland on short notice. We opened those boxes in 2002 to research the origins of our Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon for Ironman Revisited (IMR). IMR was a benefit for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) Athletes were invited to do the original Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon course of 1978, 1979, 1980. John and I were on the lookout for anything we had that had led us to starting the Iron Man.
Ah Hah! In a storage box we found the notice that had been on our table in 1977, the night that we had made our decision to put on and be in an around-the-island triathlon in February 1978. We had recalled we had made the decision on a Monday night. We had remembered that it was a delightful moment. I smile to think of it. We had not remembered that it was Valentine’s Day.
“From Valentines Day 1977 on O’ahu to 14 February 1981 on the Island of Hawaii’i. Five dates in those four years launched a new era in sport. It went from the 14 February 1977 pledge of Judy and John Collins to each other – “If you do it, I’ll do it” – by the two who created and organized the Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlons on O’ahu; to 18 February 1978, the First Annual Iron Man Triathlon whose first finisher was Gordon Haller – who trained at Nautilus Fitness; to 12 January 1980 when Hank Grundman of Nautilus was Race Director of The Third Annual /Nautilus Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon; to Valentines Day 1981 on the Big Island when Race Director Valerie Silk and Assistant Race Director Earl Yamaguchi relocated the Fourth Annual International Triathlon to Kailua-Kona. In the 1980’s the Race Directors added thousands of Big Island volunteers and the Hawaiian spirit of Aloha to the Hawaiian Iron Man Triathlon experience.
Happy Valentine’s Day
to all who have been been a part of the Ironman Triathlon story
From Judy Collins and John Collins
Coronado California, and the Republic of Panamá,
©ThisWasTriathlon, JMC 20210214