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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. I

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Speaker 1: have been extremely fortunate to have made my passion my vocation.

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Speaker 1: I have also spent the majority of my life collecting

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Speaker 1: not things, but experiences, incredible experiences all around the world.

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Speaker 1: And obviously many of these memories involved my travels and

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Speaker 1: my racing. And while I have many, some stand out

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Speaker 1: more than others. One of those happened back in two

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Speaker 1: thousand one at iron Man California, which was held in

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Speaker 1: San Diego on the Marine base Camp Pendleton. It was

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Speaker 1: my third iron Man. I still was a relative nubie.

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Speaker 1: It was a challenging race for me. The water was freezing.

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Speaker 1: I think it was like fifty two degrees. They mismeasured

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Speaker 1: the swim long, which was not a good thing for me,

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Speaker 1: and the course was challenging. The conditions were challenging, but

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Speaker 1: I finished. I had a relatively good race, actually for

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Speaker 1: me at the time. And for those of you who

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Speaker 1: don't know what an iron Man is, it's a triathlon

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Speaker 1: where you swim two point four miles, you bike one

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Speaker 1: hundred and twelve miles, and you run a marathon twenty

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Speaker 1: six point two miles, so it was my third again

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Speaker 1: finished and my wife was there and we decided we

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Speaker 1: wanted to get back to the finish line at midnight.

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Speaker 1: And again, for those of you who don't know, you

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Speaker 1: have until midnight, seventeen hours to finish an iron Man

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Speaker 1: race for you tobe quote unquote official, so you have

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Speaker 1: to get there before midnight. Uh they've changed the rules

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but by and large race started at

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Speaker 1: seven and you had to be in by midnight to

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Speaker 1: be official, and if you were seventeen oh one, it

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Speaker 1: didn't count. So sometimes it's challenging. You finished an iron Man,

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Speaker 1: you're kind of beaten up and it's tough to get

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Speaker 1: back to the finish line. But it's one of the

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Speaker 1: most incredible experiences if and when you do so we

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Speaker 1: always try to get back and we did so. My

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Speaker 1: wife and I went back to the finish line, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, half hour before midnight or so to see

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Speaker 1: the final finishers. And as the clock ticked down, the

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Speaker 1: announcer said there was one person really close to the

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Speaker 1: finish line out on the course and they better hurry

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Speaker 1: up if they wanted to get to the finish line.

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Speaker 1: By midnight and be official. And there was a big

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Speaker 1: turn so we could see down a little bit past

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Speaker 1: the finish line, and then there was a turn to

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Speaker 1: the left and all of a sudden, marines who had

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Speaker 1: been volunteering on the course. By the way, you got

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Speaker 1: your gatorades, your power bars, and you were being cheered

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Speaker 1: on by marines all over the course, which made it

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Speaker 1: a truly unique and special experience as well. But all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden you saw these marines one, then two,

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Speaker 1: then five, then ten marines coming around the corner, jogging

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Speaker 1: really slowly, full camouflage, year combat boots, slow pace. And

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Speaker 1: as ten came around, then twelve, then there was someone

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Speaker 1: with them. Gives me chills to talk about, and it

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Speaker 1: was a guy named Bill Bell, who at the time

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Speaker 1: was trying to become the oldest person to finish an

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Speaker 1: iron Man. And he was going slowly and he was

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Speaker 1: surrounded marines in front, marines on either side of him,

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Speaker 1: and marines behind him. And the clock ticked down and

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Speaker 1: came down two seconds, but he finished surrounded by marines,

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Speaker 1: led by marines, paced by marines, midnight crowd going crazy.

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Speaker 1: At age seventy eight, Bill Bell became the oldest person

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Speaker 1: to finish an iron Man. Well, Bill Bell passed away

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Speaker 1: a few days ago. I never met him. I saw

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Speaker 1: that finish, never had the opportunity to shake his hand,

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Speaker 1: to talk to him, but read about him and raced

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Speaker 1: with him multiple times after that. But his story is amazing.

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Speaker 1: So not only did he in two thousand one become

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Speaker 1: the oldest person to finish an iron Man at a

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, he wasn't an athlete back in the day.

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Speaker 1: He started late. So here's his story. Bill Bell wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a pilot in the military in his younger days,

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Speaker 1: but couldn't do it because of issues he had with

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Speaker 1: eyes and blood pressure. So medical issues kept him from

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Speaker 1: becoming a pilot, so instead he went into the aircraft

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Speaker 1: industry and became an engineer. Wasn't a big exercise or

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Speaker 1: in his fifties he's described as doing. His exercise was

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Speaker 1: walking a golf course, you know, no structured exercise. Definitely

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Speaker 1: wasn't racing doing anything like that. In n he went

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Speaker 1: in for a routine physical stress test showed he's got

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Speaker 1: issues with his z KG. He was sent off to

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Speaker 1: a cardiologist abnormalities, and his doctor gave him medication and

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Speaker 1: told him, hey, you should start running forty minutes three

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Speaker 1: times a week. Well, Bill Bell did three weeks in

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Speaker 1: supposedly he said, this is awesome. Can I run more?

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Speaker 1: I want to run every day. His doctor cleared him

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Speaker 1: for that, and from there it's history. He finished his

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Speaker 1: first marathon at age fifty nine, and one year later

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Speaker 1: he did his first iron Man, so he started running.

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Speaker 1: He started racing at age fifty nine, basically sixty. He

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Speaker 1: saw the iron Man World Championships on TV in and

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Speaker 1: that's what inspired him to start. And two years after

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Speaker 1: seeing that he was there he was competing in the

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Speaker 1: iron Man World Championships. Back in that day, at that time,

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Speaker 1: the oldest age group when you raced to sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: which was pretty challenging, right six to sixty nine marathon's

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Speaker 1: iron Man's that was the oldest age group. Well, thanks

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Speaker 1: to Bill Bell. When he turned seventy, he asked them

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Speaker 1: too had a seventy to seventy four age group, and

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Speaker 1: then he asked the race directors to add a seventy

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Speaker 1: five to seventy nine and the rest is history. In

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Speaker 1: when he was seventy three, he became the oldest person

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Speaker 1: to ever finish that iron Man World Championships in Kona,

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Speaker 1: and not only that, he kept a streak going, came

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Speaker 1: back year after year until two thousand one, which was

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Speaker 1: his final iron Man Hawaii World Championships finished. He had

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Speaker 1: a pacemaker put in two thousand two, and he tried

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Speaker 1: for Kona one final time, tried to do the World

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Speaker 1: Championships one final time in two thousand four at age

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Speaker 1: eighty one, but he didn't finish because he got some

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Speaker 1: leg cramps and a flat tire. Leg cramps and a

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Speaker 1: flat tire at age eighty one. And let me give

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Speaker 1: you just a quick athletic resume of his that is

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Speaker 1: not enough but amazing in and of itself. He biked

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Speaker 1: across the country twice. He completed over a hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty marathons and ultra marathons. He completed more than three

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Speaker 1: hundred triathlons, which included thirty two full iron Man races,

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Speaker 1: nineteen of which were iron Man World Championships in Hawaii,

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Speaker 1: one of the most challenging races you can do. And again,

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Speaker 1: all of these happened after age sixty, and many of

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Speaker 1: them with hard issues, and many of them with a pacemaker.

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Speaker 1: A few years later, he was inducted into the USA

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Speaker 1: Triathlon Hall of Fame. And when he gave his speech,

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Speaker 1: he said these words, and I quote I tell this

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Speaker 1: to people all the time. You don't have to swim

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Speaker 1: two miles, you don't have to do a marathon, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to ride a bike a hundred miles. But

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Speaker 1: do something active, keep the body moving. I would say,

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Speaker 1: rest in peace, Bill Bell, but Bill Bell is an

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Speaker 1: not someone who rests. Thank you for listening. I am

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Speaker 1: Tom Holland. This is Fitness Disrupted, Believe in yourself. Fitness

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Speaker 1: Disrupted is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: H