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An Athletic Odyssey in Hawaii: The Story of an Athlete and a Coach
| Article
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12221 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1987 |
2,447 Words |
| Author
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Nancy Lee Fernas
Nancy Lee Fernas is a free-lance writer and associate editor
of Mercury Magazine, a publication of the Los Angeles Athletic
Club. |
When Bill Garrels plunged into the pounding surf off Hawaii's beautiful Kona Coast for the first leg of the Big Island Ultraman - an event considered by many to be the world's toughest individual endurance challenge - he had no way of knowing if he would reach his goal.
He was only certain that he had to try.
Ahead of him at that moment lay the longest, and probably the most grueling, 308.4 miles of his life. The three-day event, which completely circles the Big Island, requires a six-mile open ocean swim, 250 miles of biking over the Kohala Mountains, and a 52.4-mile ultramarathon through hot lava fields. The event must be completed in forty hours or less.
Even for the fittest of athletes, it is a feat that demands every ounce of strength and determination that a human being is capable of extracting...and then some.
Surrounded by men and women, each so different yet so similar, Garrels methodically plied his way through the water. For nine solid months, he trained rigorously for this day - November 28, 1986. The athletic odyssey that meant so much to him was now at hand.
As he swam, he thought of his coach, Louise Fukui, standing on shore. Although he had been the one physically training day in and day out for this moment, mentally, they swam, biked, and ran those seemingly endless hours together. It was he, the athlete, and she, the coach - a team - that had gotten him this far. As he pushed ahead through the choppy waves, it was as if Louise were in the water beside him.
The two first met a year before at the Los Angeles Athletic club in downtown Los Angeles. Drawn together by a fascination with ultradistance competition, they decided to work together, hoping to help one another realize a dream. They had been two strangers with the same destination.
"I spoke a commitment to her about wanting to be a great athlete, and she spoke a commitment to me about wanting to coach a great athlete, and we've always interacted out of that," Garrels explained.
Six feet tall and 165 pounds, the twenty-six-year-old Chicago native does not view himself as a natural athlete. "I'm just an everyday guy who gets up every morning and puts his pants on and
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