Girls Just Want to Have Fun

The Ironman Triathlon is a grueling event.  It includes a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run and while there are Ironman courses all over the world, not one of them would be considered easy. 

Athletes choose to enter the Ironman for a variety of reasons.  Some enter with the hopes of winning.  Others enter with the hopes of placing in their age group.  Some enter with a dim hope of earning a qualifying time for Ironman Kona.  Most enter with the hopes of surviving the course and crossing the finish line.

Pasadena resident Julie Dukes could have fallen into several of those categories when she ran her first Ironman in Canada in 2004, but after crossing that finish line her goal became a single minded one - to have fun. 

When I asked Dukes how many she has completed she couldn’t remember the exact number.

“I think it’s about 18 now. I was trying to remember but don’t recall exactly.” She joked, “They all start to run together.”

She has completed all of the North American Ironman Events but has also travelled to England, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.  The travel is part of what she has found fun in these adventures. 

Each Ironman race is held in a beautiful venue and Dukes likes to take advantage of that.  She uses each trip to visit a new part of the world and hopes to find the time to complete every Ironman sponsored event available to her.  This is no small feat, as the Ironman Corporation is constantly growing and adding to its race calendar. 

When Dukes says she likes to have fun she means it. She races without a watch, doesn’t use a heart rate monitor and doesn’t have a coach.  When it comes to training, she is dedicated but she likes to wing it, adding other shorter distance triathlons and even more difficult challenges like the Bay Swim and the 128 mile, Mountains of Misery Ride that she was warned away from repeatedly because she was riding a tri-bike, not a climbing bike and is a triathlete as opposed to a serious cyclist.

Dukes doesn’t think of herself as an athlete.  Even when she received her qualifying spot for Kona, the World Championships of the Ironman event, she spoke of it as getting lucky enough to earn a spot.

“One thing I have learned about triathlons is that you don’t have to be good at anything,” she says. “I think it takes more will and heart to get through the longer ones then actual skill. I definitely don’t think of myself as a trained athlete.  I think I am just hardheaded and like a challenge.”

When Dukes first began her Ironman quest, she thought she might complete one event a year.  That quickly moved to two a year and finally developed into a routine she enjoys.  She now runs three Ironman distance events a year.  She has found a pattern in which she can move from a beginning of the season event to a middle of the season event out of the country and finally back to the States for an event that is usually not Ironman sponsored but is Ironman distance. 

Dukes is modest about her abilities and having known her and followed her progress over the past six years I can tell you it is a genuine modesty.  But she works hard to be able complete these distances.  She trains year round, running and cycling through some of the toughest seasons of the year. 

She is also a natural at these events.  Yes, it takes perseverance and a bit of hard headedness and she always goes in worried that she will be dead last in any event but based on her finishing times over the years this is not a real worry.  And though she really does have fun at each and every one of these events she is aware of how fortunate she has been to have found the sport.

As she talks about Kona, a race that most triathletes only dream of running, she tears up. 

“That was probably my toughest. It’s overwhelming.  Everyone is so fit and intense. The heat is unbearable. But, the fact that I was there…means more to me then most people would imagine.”

Julie Dukes is a runner, a cyclist, and a swimmer.  She is an athlete and she is something that most of us will never be.  She is an Ironman.  But none of those are how she would describe herself.

In her own words – “I just like to have fun.”