Running a 26.3-mile marathon after swimming 2.4 miles and biking
112 miles is no picnic for a fit young person but, at age 55, Mari
Jane Maples did all that and came in fifth besides.
Running a 26.3-mile marathon after swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112 miles is no picnic for a fit young person but, at age 55, Mari Jane Maples did all that and came in fifth besides.
“It was an incredible experience,” Maples said after she returned from the famous Kailua Kona Ironman triathalon in Hawaii on Oct. 16. “I had a great time but was really glad when it was over.”
Maverick Malech, who grew up in Morgan Hill, finished too, at age 38, but he is legally blind.
“It was hard but I’m glad I finished,” Malech said.
Just to get to the end of the brutal three-event Ironman is considered a feat of wonder among athletes, especially for amateurs like Maples, but to end up in fifth place in her category, or for Malech to finish with his physical challenge, is remarkable.
Maples, Malech, and 69-year-old Harriet Anderson were the only finishers from Northern California.
This endurance contests were made still more difficult by high heat and fierce winds, Maples said.
“We had the worst winds in years for the bike ride,” Maples said. “Now I don’t feel like such a wimp.”
She shouldn’t. Of 1,801 starters, most of them professional triathaloners, 28 percent of the pros dropped out before the event ended, Maples said, and 11 percent of her age category (55-59).
“The conditions were so bad,” she said, “most of the pros added an hour to their normal times.
Malech was the only blind entry in a field of 12; the others were wheelchair athletes. He was able to compete in the Kona Ironman only because he won a worldwide lottery for one of five slots for physically challenged athletes. There are no qualifying races for the physically challenged, except those in wheelchairs.
“Only four of us finished,” he said. “Two in wheelchairs, one amputee and me.”
Malech said the four were singled out for a special honor at the awards ceremony.
“Regardless of their disability, people can do anything they set their minds to,” he said.
During the swim in Kona harbor, Malech was surrounded on both sides by surfboarders to guide him since he couldn’t see the cones.
Because he can see vague shapes, the black asphalt and bright white lines on the road through rolling hills helped during the bike ride.
“I can see shapes and objects but not potholes or rocks until I’m right on top of them, and that’s too late,” he said.
The marathon was run mostly after dark.
“But I wrapped a light wand around my neck and waist and saw just enough reflection to get through the dark spots.”
Maples, who qualified for the worldwide championship Ironman at a half-ironman, called the Vineman, in Santa Rosa, didn’t have it much easier.
“But you just take it in pieces,” she said. “The run gets really mental.”
Though her goal was just to finish, not to win or place, place she did.
“I didn’t even know I had placed,” Maples said. “They took you off right away for a massage and medical checkup but then they told me to get to the awards ceremony.”
Maples’ husband, Dave, and her sister and brother-in-law were there at the finish line urging her on. Son David and daughter Lindsay cheered her on from home.
“It was great to have family there,” she said.
She has competed in triathalons for seven years.
Maples’ swim time was one hour, 50 minutes, well short of the two-hour, 20 minute cutoff time.
“I didn’t think about anything but just swimming, though the water was really clear and seeing the tropical fish was really cool,” she said.
The bike ride took her seven hours and 29 minutes.
“Most people kept going but there were lots of crashes on the bikes,” she said. “The heat was fierce – an average of 100 degrees – especially through the lava fields.”
The run took four hours and 43 minutes, a triathalon total of 14 hours, 14 minutes.
“I was hoping to do it in 13 hours and I felt bummed, but even the pros were coming in an hour slower than before,” she said.
Maples traveled to Hawaii in early October, to give herself 12 days to acclimatize to the heat and wind and to swim in the same spot.
“I just did what my coach told me to do and it all came together,” Maples said.
Will she go back for another try?
“I will definitely go back if I qualify again,” she said. “It was just a fantastic experience.”
Maples received one more accolade when she came home.
“When I opened the current issue of Inside Triathalon magazine, there was a picture of the Kona on the cover – and me,” she said. “I recognized my hat.”
Malech graduated from Live Oak High School where he played football. He now lives in Salinas with his wife, Lisa, daughter Jennifer, 10 and son, Josh, 8. Malech became legally blind from retinitis pigmentosa in 1993.
When he started training for the Ironman, in 1997 after watching a documentary on television, he was out of shape, didn’t know how to swim, had never biked or run more than a few miles.
“I was moved by those athletes’ stories,” he said. “I had quit driving and was dealing with dramatic stuff in my life.”
That was December. He went online to research triathalons, joined the local swim club, met Maples at the pool and signed up for his first sprint triathalon in June.
“I was hooked,” he said.
Kona events tend to push endurance to the limit.
“They were all pretty hard,” he said. “I had never swum that distance in a pool, and certainly not in the ocean.”
He knew he could do the bike leg, though a concern was not seeing something in the road. Malech too, had family with him in Hawaii: his brother, his parents and a cousin, Roger. The Malechs are a Morgan Hill founding family.
Would he do this again?
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve already put in my application for the physically challenged lottery for next year.
Malech’s mother Nancy, who lives in Coyote, said she finds him amazing.
“We are very proud of his accomplishments,” Nancy said recently. “Not just the Ironman, but his way of life, the way he supports his family.”
Malech works for ERA Steinbeck Realty in Salinas.
“He has a lot of stamina and determination,” Nancy said.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
