Ultimate Firefighter is Triple Ironman

Add Feedback

Share |

An Ironman Triathlon is a grueling competition that includes a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride and a 26 mile run. Steve Teal, a Firefighter/Paramedic from Orange County, California has taken that much further by traveling to Virginia for his first Triple Iron Triathlon, an ultra-triathlon which included a 7.2 mile swim, a 336 mile bike ride and a 78.6 mile run.

Seven years ago he started a fitness regime, a little running just to get in shape. Then it was on to his first marathon and then endurance events. It took him almost a year and more than 1,000 hours of training to get ready for the ultra-triathlon, a non-stop race where competitors are given 60 hours to finish all three events.

Teal did not just finish. "Turns out I won the thing. And so, we finished in 44 hours 39 minutes which was 6 hours ahead of the next closest competitor. So when I was done and off the course, the second place guy still had 20 miles to run," he says. 

Teal did it all without stopping to rest. During the swim, it was windy, and the lake was choppy, yet he was the second competitor out of the water. The bike race lasted two nights.  The first night the weather cooperated, but the second night was very cold. His crew was there to help him stay warm. "They were just keeping me with hot chocolate and covered up and blankets over me and everything I could do to just keep me warm and keep me going through the night," explains Teal.

After 20 hours on a bicycle it was time for the run. "By the time I got off the bike I was between 4 and 5 hours ahead of everybody. And then when I was running, I had gotten 20 something miles in before the first guy got off the bike and I thought, 'OK, now I'm doing well.'" Teal continues, "Everything fell into place and didn't have any real serious problems. By the third marathon, I was hurting and I was moving pretty slow by then."

Teal finished the race about 2:30 in the morning under unusual circumstances. He explains what happened, "The race organizers didn't realize I was as far ahead as I was. They didn't have the finish line set up yet. We were done and finished and standing around looking at each other and getting ready to pack up the van and the time station guys went over to the race director and said 'You know, he's finished,' and so he came over and they had no idea we were even done."

Four different times, Teal has punished himself during another type of race, the Death Valley Cup, a combination of two endurance events. The first one is an invitational event , and according to Teal, "It's Badwater which is 135 mile foot race through Death Valley in July. It's about 130 degrees. It hurts. It's a very difficult, difficult event." A few weeks later is Furnace Creek, a punishing bicycle race through Death Valley. "It's 508 miles, nonstop, non drafting. And there's 36 thousand feet of climb. And you've only got 48 hours to do it," Teal says.

Training has become his "D-Shift" job, and he looks to the future and a few other races he would like to do. "The Marathon des Sables is a 150 mile foot race through the Sahara desert. I've known people that have done it and they say I'm a pretty good candidate for it," Teal says humbly and continues. "And they do another one that's 150 miles in China. It's through the Gobi Desert."

All the races he does are very punishing and as a firefighter, Teal explains he thinks about that, saying, "Some of these events I have to take a lot of time off to recover so when I come back to work, if the tones go off, I'm ready to go."


Author:Barbara Brooks - FDNNTV.com