After training with a group of triathlon athletes in an attempt to get in better shape, Jacques Steinberg '88 a senior editor at The New York Times who oversees the college admissions blog "The Choice" was struck by the many parallels between triathlon training and the college application process. Steinberg compiled his observations and personal experiences to create a non-fiction book, "You Are An Ironman: How Six Weekend Warriors Chased Their Dream of Finishing the World's Toughest Triathlon," which was released on Sept. 15.
"You Are an Ironman" is Steinberg's first book since his 2002 "The Gatekeepers," a chronicle of the admissions process at Wesleyan University that The Times selected as one of its Notable Books of 2002. "You Are an Ironman," has been well-received by many literary critics, especially among sports novel reviewers, but was lambasted in a Times review written by freelance writer Jay Jennings.
"What if you watched a half-dozen first-time [triathlon athletes] all descend on one place, just like applying to college?" Steinberg, former president of The Dartmouth, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Three years later, that idea translated into "You Are An Ironman." The nonfiction account follows six individuals as they prepare, train and compete in their first-ever Ironman triathlon challenge, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26-mile run. The entire challenge must be completed in under 17 hours, Steinberg said.
While plenty of inspirational books have been written about how to compete in a triathlon, Steinberg aimed to make the nonfiction story "accessible to an audience who are not just athletes," he said.
In 2008, Steinberg flew to Arizona to attend the Ford Ironman Arizona challenge in hopes of identifying potential characters for his book. He moved up and down the registration line to speak with various individuals registering for the competition, he said.
Through personal interactions and with assistance from Ironman officials, Steinberg found his subjects six compelling individuals who were competing in an Ironman race for the first time. The competitors came from a range of athletic backgrounds Bryan Reece had not been in a gym for 30 years and Laura Arnez, a mother of five, had an intense fear of drowning, Steinberg said.
After a year of chronicling his subjects' training habits and preparations for the race, Steinberg watched his subjects complete the 2009 Ford Ironman Arizona challenge using his experience as a journalist to observe and record certain nuances in their behavior and athletic style.
Arnez finished the swim portion of the competition in two hours and 19 minutes, with only 47 seconds to spare until disqualification, he said. The Ironman cutoffs helped build suspense throughout the writing process, Steinberg said.
"It's one of the great things about writing nonfiction," he said. "If you had written that as fiction, it would sound crazy."
Steinberg, who began writing the book without a pre-determined plot line, said he did not know how the story was going to end, "just like the reader."
"This was the most nerve-wracking and exciting part of the process," Steinberg said.
Kevin Mackinnon, the managing editor of the Ironman website, commended Steinberg for incorporating multiple individuals' accounts into his work.
"Every single athlete has an amazing story," Mackinnon said. "What [Steinberg] managed to do was, in a book, tell a whole pile."
Steinberg's interest in Ironman challenges reflect the competitions' growing popularity, he said. The first race was held in Hawaii in 1978, and the Ironman organization currently holds 27 competitions, according to the official Ironman website. Today, each Ironman event attracts roughly 2,500 competitors, Steinberg said.
Steinberg credits the rise in numbers to the "multi-tasking" nature of the 21st century, in which many intense athletes want do "more than just a marathon."
While his triathlon book may be viewed by some as "a little bit of a leap" from his career path of writing about higher education, Steinberg said that his two books are in fact more similar than people initially assume.
"In both instances, it's following a group of people that are pursuing a goal that's monumental and life-changing," Steinberg said. "It's a lesson to what's possible and [that] ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things."
Jennings declined to comment for this article.
