A life lived at full speed

Published 11:26 pm Saturday, July 7, 2007

MUKILTEO – At 6:30 this morning, Dan Thorson will plunge into Lake Stevens, hoping not to get kicked in the head.

It will be the start of the swim portion of the Barclays North Ironman Triathlon and a field of more than 1,100 participants was expected. That’s a lot of arms and legs thrashing in close proximity to one another.

In his first triathlon 15 years ago, Thorson remembered the swim as being “like a washing machine with a lot of feet in your face. You’d take five strokes and pop your head out of the water” to make sure you weren’t about to bludgeon someone.

He recalled how a friend of his, who wasn’t an accomplished swimmer, “got run over by two waves of people” in a race two years ago.

If it sounds like a ripe environment for an injury, it is. “People get concussions occasionally,” Thorson said. That’s why he often starts on the outside of the field where he has more room to maneuver.

Thorson, by his own admission, is not a great swimmer. He came late to the sport. “The first time I swam, in 1991, I could go about 50 yards and then have to take a break,” he recalled.

He is a strong runner, however, and a decent bicyclist, which allowed him to finish in the top 50 men overall in the Lake Stevens triathlon a year ago. That qualified him for the World Championship but he had to take a pass because his wife, Alix, was pregnant with their second child, Abby, who was born in August.

The Lake Stevens event, one of 22 that funnel into the World Championship in November, attracts people from all over the United States. And last year, both overall winners were from outside the U.S. Luke Bell, who makes his living as a triathlete and a teacher, came all the way from Melbourne, Australia, to claim the first prize in the men’s division, and Tanya Salomon of Calgary, Canada, won the women’s competition.

Though he has competed in more than 50 triathlons and duathlons (run-bike-run events), Thorson is not a professional athlete, though when you consider the amount of time he puts into training, the Average Joe might think otherwise.

Pretty much seven days a week, he’s either on his bike on the open roads, or logging miles in his running shoes, or working to improve his swimming at Lake Serene. When he does take a day off from these disciplines, he’s lifting weights.

Thorson participated in cross country and track at the University of Colorado, but because he was “often injured,” he had to find another sport in which to channel his energies after college. “I just couldn’t do the 70 miles a week as a runner anymore,” he said.

So he became a triathlete. A duathlete. And a bicycle racer.

Until 2003, Thorson was a full-time teacher, but with the birth of his oldest daughter, Tessa, he became a stay-at-home-dad three days a week and a substitute teacher the other two. On the days he’s in the classroom, primarily at Harbour Pointe Middle School, his wife, a doctor, is home with the kids.

One morning recently, Thorson got up at 5:25 and was out the door and running before his wife went to work. That night, after the kids were in bed, he went for a workout on the bike.

On late-night rides during the winter, he faces the perils of darkness and wet pavement. “I’m lit up like Las Vegas,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like putting a car light on my head. And I can usually recruit a couple of people to go with me.”

Some wives might not understand such dedication to an amateur sport. His wife understands completely. Because she, too, is a triathlete.

“That’s a loose term,” Alix said. “I used to be. I haven’t done any since we had our kids, but I’m aspiring to get back into it.”

She has some skills. When she did her residency in North Carolina, she competed in and won some mini-triathlons. “Obscure ones,” she said.

Doesn’t matter. Anyone subjecting his or her body to the rigors of a triathlon, however big or small, has to be talented and tough. And to win is even more impressive.

Dan longs for the day when he and Alix can do an ironman triathlon together. An ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run.

The Lake Stevens event is half an ironman: a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run. Still taxing enough that the overall winner will be on the course for at least four hours.

Thorson needed a little more than five hours to complete the race last year, giving him 10th place in the men’s 35-39 age division, which had nearly 70 finishers.

At 37, the slightly built Thorson – he’s 5-feet-10 and weighs 145 pounds – could pass for an 18-year-old. Not surprisingly, he got carded on a trip back to Colorado last year.

When he taught high school, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and a backpack and apparently fit in with the student body so well that security once demanded he show a pass.

Thorson seems very laid-back, but appearances are deceiving. “He has a very competitive streak in him,” his wife said “He works out with some folks of the same mind. They really push each other.”

His ultimate goal as a triathlete? “That’s a good question,” he said. “I want to keep doing it for a long time.”

His inspiration is Madonna Buder, a Catholic nun from Spokane. Sister Buder has completed more than 200 triathlons and in 2005, became at 75 the oldest woman to finish the Hawaii Ironman.

“When I’m 75,” Thorson said, “I would like to still be able to get out and do an ironman.”

With his wife, of course.