Two years ago, Dr. Bob Bergland, professor of journalism, decided to take up biking so he could compete in triathlons. He had run track and cross country in high school and college, even running in four marathons while in graduate school, and had often swum when he had a running injury. So the running and swimming weren’t new to him; only the bike riding was.
His first bike ride, six miles, was really tough. “I thought to myself, ‘how do those ironmen do this?” he said with a laugh. “The thought of spending all that time on a bike, I thought, ‘no way.’ But it’s amazing what your body can do when you build up and train.”
Dr. Robert Bergland, Ironman
And build up and train he did. Just two years after that painful bike ride, Dr. Bergland became an Ironman, swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running a marathon, all in less than 14 hours.
“Crossing the finish line is just the best feeling,” he said. “So many things beyond your control can go wrong that day, but everything went right.”
Dr. Bergland’s road to the Ironman triathlon is a story of mental perseverance, physical training and New Year’s resolutions.
On New Year’s Day 2013, with the Ironman goal in the back of his mind, Dr. Bergland resolved to take up bicycling and compete in triathlons. After that first six-mile ride, he kept riding and went on to complete an Olympic-distance triathlon, which is a 0.9 mile swim, a 24.8 mile bike ride, and a 10K run. But near the end of 2013, he struggled with a 35-mile bike ride, and Dr. Bergland decided to ramp up his next New Year’s resolution.
On New Year’s Day 2014, he resolved to complete a half-Ironman sometime that year, which meant a 1.2 mile swim, 56 miles on the bike, and a 13.1-mile run. He completed two.
Then, in October of that year, he completed a 100-mile bike ride. He injured his foot, but still made his 2015 New Year’s Day resolution: become an Ironman. He signed up to compete in an Ironman race in August 2015.
“I wanted a weight loss plan where I could lose 25 pounds and eat whatever I wanted, and it worked,” Dr. Bergland said with a laugh.
In June 2015, he biked 200 miles across the state as a “confidence builder.”
Two months later, he and his wife, Tammy, traveled to Waconia, Minnesota and he became an Ironman.
To be able to call yourself an Ironman, Dr. Bergland said, you have to finish the course in 17 hours or less. His personal target time was 14 hours, and he came in a little under that.
“At no point did I seriously think about quitting, and that surprised me,” he said.
At age 47, Dr. Bergland figured the training and the race for the Ironman would never get easier, but he’s not counting out another Ironman race down the road. Maybe as he approaches milestone birthday, perhaps. But as for a 2016 resolution, it will just be more triathlons.
“I won’t ever touch the running times of my youth, but triathlons give me new best times,” he says. “But it’s nice to feel like an athlete at age 47.”