Ironman racer gets support to ‘go the distance’

People who cram hours of workouts into full-time work and school schedules comprise the majority of competitors in Coeur d’Alene’s Ironman Triathlon, and they deserve more recognition, according to a national sports magazine.

“We want to let people know that anyone can do a triathlon, no matter what size or shape you are or who you are. You can do it,” said Kyle du Ford, editor-in-chief of Inside Triathlon magazine in Boulder, Colo.

Most of the Ironman triathletes who swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles, then run 26.2 miles are everyday people – waitresses and teachers, grocers and postal clerks, electricians, students and college professors.

Inside Triathlon magazine created a national age-group triathlon team this year to honor those athletes, and Coeur d’Alene’s Rachel McDevitt, 32, is on it. McDevitt is the only Idaho triathlete among the 15 women and 16 men on the team.

“It’s incentive to keep going,” McDevitt said Monday from her job as a secretary at a Hayden company that supplies technical support for waste-to-energy plants. “People are checking up on me now.”

McDevitt is the first to admit she’s no professional athlete. She works full-time. Until she taught herself a few years ago, she hardly swam. She played softball and basketball at Coeur d’Alene High and ran as an adult for fitness. She entered her first triathlon as the cyclist on a family team and stuck with teams until she decided to try a triathlon on her own eight years ago.

She watched Coeur d’Alene’s first Ironman in 2003, then volunteered at the event’s finish line last year. She was sold.

When she registered for the race, McDevitt also subscribed to Inside Triathlon.

“I figured I needed the pointers and tips,” she said.

She worked with a friend to tailor workouts she found in a book to her work schedule. The workout schedule started in late December, but McDevitt said she was so excited that she posted it on her refrigerator in October and studied it every day.

Earlier this year, McDevitt read Inside Triathlon’s announcement that it was creating a team of “mortals,” as du Ford describes recreational athletes. Triathletes of every distance were eligible. The magazine wanted each aspirant to send a 500-word essay explaining why he or she is the typical age-group triathlete. McDevitt began writing.

She wrote about the first movie she saw with her dad when she was 3 – “Rocky”– and her childhood obsession with training for anything. She committed herself to three triathlons this year, including Ironman.

“My goal is not to break records: I’m not even setting a time goal for myself,” she wrote.

“My goal is the same as Rocky’s – to go the distance.”

McDevitt was just what Inside Triathlon was looking for.

“We wanted people who give back to the community, the ones who stop and help if a fellow competitor has an accident,” du Ford said.

“Wherever they race, they’ll be ambassadors of the sport. We want to promote the sport among mortals.”

McDevitt has no huge responsibilities on her new team.

She’ll wear red and white racing gear emblazoned with the magazine’s name and a list of team members, who represent 22 states.

The magazine is awarding each team member with coaching software, power food and drinks, sunglasses, helmets, bike pedals, cycling gear and more.

The honor is enough to keep McDevitt moving this week, the most intense workout point before the June 26 race.

In another week, she’ll cut back and start storing energy while the butterflies in her stomach multiply.

She wrote in her essay that she can’t help wondering what role “Rocky” played in her decision to participate in the long-distance race. And she ended with this thought: “I don’t even want to think what I would be doing today if my first movie had been Cinderella.”