82 more days. 82 more 24 hour increments. 82 more days until I put myself through pain like I’ve never felt before. 82 more days…
The date was August 31, 2007. I was on my way to the Bronx and I thought to myself, “It’s time to tell my father.” I called my father, fully knowing what he’d say: “Are you out of your mind?”, “Do you know what type of commitment this requires?”, and etc. I placed the call and my mother picked up the phone. I told her I needed to talk to dad. Somewhat paraphrased below.
My father: “Hey, Tone, what’s goin’ on?”
Me: “Dad, I have something to tell you” (he’s probably thinking, “Please don’t tell me you’re in a jail in Mexico”)
Father: “Ok, what’s that?”
Me: “Before I tell you, I need your 100% support behind me”
Father: “You know that’s always the case”
Me: “Plan your vacation for 2008 now. We’re going to Louisville exactly one year from today. I’m registered for Ironman”
Father: “are you crazy…..time commitment…..blah blah”
Me: “I know it’s going to be the hardest thing I ever do, but I need you behind me. I’m doing it in memory of Jared, to benefit the scholarship”
And so we talked. My mother got on the line and you could just feel her emotion about how honorable this effort was in her mind. That’s when it was set into stone, I had told someone else that I was going to make an attempt to become an Ironman, in Louisville, Kentucky on August 31, 2008. You may have saw the Ironman on NBC or ABC in past years and for those of you who have not it consists of a 2.4 mile swim (to be completed in less than 2 hours and 20 minutes), 112 mile bike (to be completed in 8 hours and 10 minutes) and a full marathon, 26.2 mile run (to be completed in whatever time you have left before midnight). It was once considered to be an impossible race and has since been the staple of endurance races. The whole race must be completed within 17 hours or it’s as if you were never even there.
What made me want to do this? What is the correlation between Jared’s life and Ironman? I will start with the first question. Rewind back a long time, 1997. I was basically acting like an idiot. Driving my parents crazy. Long story short, I came to the conclusion (with some help) that I needed to start hanging out with positive influences and quit getting in trouble. Not that I was ever in crazy extreme trouble, but it was just time to find a new group. Luckily, I was playing soccer and basketball at that point and I met Brian (Muff) LeBlanc, Mike Stasiuk and Tyler Shea, and Brian Godard. I knew these were the type of people I needed to surround myself with. I later became close with Jared Grenier, Gary Piotrowski, and Dan Kushner (Kush) during our sophomore year at Southington High School. Additionally, between freshman and sophomore years, I met Kevin Thompson, Brian Godard, Dawn Wasik, PJ Olore, Jon Denote, Ryan Clark, Doug O’Leary and our girls: Nicole Bertzos, Allison Bruemmer, Jessica Cochrane, and Mary Brothwell. Trust me when I say we were inseparable from sophomore year and on, even now. These people are like family and they are truly the best people I have ever met. I owe much of much of my well-being to them.
After graduating from Southington High School in 2001, we all went on to college. The amazing part of this is that, Tyler, Muff, Kush, and myself enrolled at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY while Jared enrolled at Western New England, Mike went to Bryant College, and others went to other institutions. Long story short, Jared was not cut out for college and Mike was not cut out for Bryant. Jared joined the workforce and Mike transferred to Marist during our sophomore year of college. Little did we know our lives would be turned upside down just one year later.
I remember the day vividly, September 18, 2003. I was studying in the library and got a matter-of-fact but somewhat serious phone call from Kush.
-“Hey, can you come back to the apartment?
-“Sure, just finished up studying”
I was humming a song, didn’t really care about anything except what we were doing that night and Kush opened the door for me. I will never, ever forget this conversation, it’s like burned into me forever. And these are the exact words.
-“It’s about Jared. He was in an accident last night. He didn’t make it”
-“What!?!?! What do we do?”
The weeks to come were horrendous, at best. I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk. We were all the same way. Although some of us left Marist to come home quicker than others. I remember the drive home back to Southington with Kush, knowing the reason we were going home was to bury our best friend. We didn’t speak in the car. Just drove. Ya know, here was this guy…..he was just up at Marist visiting us, having a crazy good time, and all of a sudden….he’s gone. How do you handle something like that? I mean I know it happens to many people, but that’s the thing….you never think it’ll happen to you. But it happened, and it happened fast. He was gone and we were left with great pictures and great memories.
We had decided that the best, most feasible way to carry on Jared’s memory was to create a scholarship in his name; we would give it to a Southington High School senior who displayed the qualities that Jared embodied most. And so we gave our first award to Carly Wasik in the spring of 2005. We have given $1,000 dollars each year to the student that most embodies Jared’s qualities and I think that I speak for all of us when I say we are damn proud of that. This was all due to individual contributors and through our fundraising efforts. In terms of fundraising, we have had two banquet style dinners, in 2005 and 2006. They were hugely successful. 2007 came around and we really didn’t have anything planned. And then I looked in the mirror and said “Make something happen.”
Not to belittle or trivialize any other fundraising efforts, including ours previously, but I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Then I started thinking, well some of these great organizations and great scholarships have events that have nothing to do with the person or cause they are memorializing, i.e. motorcycle rides, walk-a-thons, etc. Please don’t get me wrong, that actually helped my mentality. The thing is, Jared would have loved being at his fundraising banquet dinners. That was his style, and really, that’s our style. Socializing, eating, drinking – all with good friends. But that got me thinking that, there really are no boundaries on what we could do for a fundraiser. And my idea was born.
Here I was, a single guy, not too much responsibility, looking to take something on. I had a lot of flexibility with my job also. So I decided I’d get back to adventure racing and triathlons. I was missing competition for a while. And so I trained lightly/moderately. 2-3 mile run after work. 10 mile mountain bike ride on the weekend. And then it started to pick up. Those 2-3 mile runs were quickly turning into 10 – 15 mile runs, and those 10 mile mountain bike rides were turning into “how fast can you go” 25 mile road bike rides. All of a sudden, Mike Stasiuk (who was already in great shape) and I were registered for an adventure race in New Jersey. We raced, and we were hooked. I think at that point is when we took the plunge and registered for a 24 hour adventure race in New Hampshire. But not before I tasted the triathlon scene again.
So I raced a few more adventure races, and did one sprint triathlon. Half mile swim, 16 mile bike, 5k run. I had done triathlons in the past, and so I knew what to expect. I just figured it would be a good warm-up for the 24 hour race, which was a couple weekends later. Long story short, I won my age group and just knew that I had a great race, I felt very good. It just felt a little bit better to cross the finish line at a triathlon than anything else. The thoughts started then. I loved being on a “team” as with adventure racing, but I liked being accountable for my own successes and/or failures. Little did anyone know, I had registered for Ironman a week beforehand with intentions to make it a fundraiser because of a lack thereof. Kill two birds with one stone maybe.
The 24 hour race was one hell of a time. I raced with Mike Stasiuk and Dan Kushner, with my father (who got me into the whole multi-sport scene from the beginning! Thanks dad!) as our support vehicle/person. We were ill-prepared, the only real thing we brought to the table was fitness, and that is not enough in adventure racing. We got lost in the mountains for hours in the middle of the night. We were officially disqualified after 21 hours, 14 of which were on a mountain bike. I won’t tell you what it feels like to be on a bike for 14 hours.
And so I then told all the people close to me that I would be attempting to become an Ironman to benefit Jared’s scholarship. Not one person, friends or family, had a negative tone about it, and that was great. Hell, I knew this would be something that really is beyond my abilities but I planned on testing that. I could just picture Jared bein’ like “Yo, you’re crazy dude. Why don’t you just sit down with me and have a beer?”
After I committed to Ironman, I ran the Hartford marathon and finished in 3:42. Little did I know the injury I was carrying along with me. My knee cap was mistracking, most likely due to overuse. I went to see a surgeon at Uconn and he advised against any endurance racing and I told him that was not an option and to prescribe me something that would allow for me to compete the following August, even if I had to have surgery. Luckily, I didn’t have to have surgery but I landed me in physical therapy for 3 months after the marathon. I now have to wear a knee brace, but it’s a minor inconvenience, if you can even call it that.
So here I am. 82 days from race day. 82 days from when I can put on that jersey in memory of one of my best friends. 82 days until I can thank my other best friends for supporting me through the past year.
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