Book Signing- You are and Ironman

Larchmont resident, Jacques Steinberg will be at Anderson’s Book Shop on Saturday, September 17^th from 2-4 for a book signing.

In his new book, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN: How Six Weekend Warriors Chased Their Dream of Finishing the World's Toughest Triathlon  Jacques Steinberg, New York Times reporter and author of the bestselling The Gatekeepers, creates a compelling and suspenseful portrait of six people pursuing this life-defining goal: a 2.4-mile swim (the equivalent of about 175 lengths across a typical, 25-yard community pool), followed by a 112-mile bike ride (the length of the trip from New York City to past Philadelphia), followed in turn by a 26.2-mile (marathon-distance) run—all of which must be completed in no more than 17 hours.

Steinberg follows each athlete in lakes and health-club pools, on the roads and in “tune-up” races as they experience triumphs and setbacks along the way. We meet a businessman on the verge of a heart attack; a schoolteacher eager to set a good example for his daughters; the director of a fitness center at an Air Force base who survived a bout of cancer; a woman inspired by the tenacity of her husband, a triathlete himself who was the recipient of a rare double-lung transplant; and two California mothers, one who had dreamed of becoming a runner since she was an overweight young girl and the other who signs up for the Ironman on a dare. These are the weekend warriors we come to know over the course of the year they spend training for the Ironman and as the athletes quickly discover, as grueling as Ironman training can be physically, it also entails personal sacrifice.

Some of the featured athletes cross the finish line; some do not. But as they prepare for the Ford Ironman Arizona, one of several dozen races at the Ironman distance around the world, Steinberg shows why they would undertake the challenge one race official refers to as a “Poor Man’s Everest.”

One of the main characters of the book, Bryan Reece of San Antonio — will be attending the book event.

The book also makes reference to four people from Larchmont who competed in, and finished, that same race. They are:

1. Gary Rodbell
2. Paul Epstein
3. Heather Segal
4. Matt Karp (chef/owner of Plates)

Gary leads an informal, rag-tag group of weekend warriors that rides upward of 50 miles each summer, and that calls itself Team Will. It is named in honor of Will McCurdy, also of Larchmont, who suffers from a rare, debilitating, life-threatening disease called Barth Syndrome. At Ironman Arizona alone, Gary and Team Will raised nearly $400,000 for Barth Syndrome, and won the race's fundraising championship.

 Just to bring things full circle, "You are an Ironman" is dedicated to Gary, Will and Paul, who first introduced me to the Ironman world.