Marvin Dittfurth - A DAY UNLIKE ANY OTHER DAY

Copyright 2022 Marvin Dittfurth

Print ISBN: 978-1-64719-970-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64719-971-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Published by BookLocker.com, Inc., Trenton, Georgia.

BookLocker.com, Inc.

2022

First Edition

Acknowledgments

First, I want to thank God. As the mover and shaker in the last half of my life, He has given me purpose, direction, hope, joy, and inspiration. Yet, at the same time, He has given me enough failure, heartache, and disappointment to nurture growth in my Christian experience.

Secondly, I wish to thank my wife Pat for being a constant source of strength and inspiration for this quest. For years, she has devoted so much of herself to be with me on this journey. From 5ks to 10ks, to marathons, to triathlons, and finally to my failure-fraught ironman journey, she has been there for me unconditionally. I owe her my best. God bless this beautiful, selfless person.

My Wife Pat Only God Loves Me More

Table of Contents

Preface

Impossible. Ordinary people were swimming 2.4 miles, then biking 112 miles, then running a marathon, all in one day. How can they do that?

On a day much like any other, as I watched the Ironman on a small black and white television with rabbit ears for an antenna, something clicked on insides me. Even from that little fuzzy picture, the spirit of Ironman came through. A dormant kinship was revealed, giving birth to an immediate connection and bonding with those brave ordinary souls toiling against all manner of hardships to finish the ironman course.

That connection engendered the scary thought: could I be counted among those splendid few struggling to overcome the challenge of this beast of an event? Yeah, it was just a crazy momentary rush that would fade impotently into normal life and ordinary thought. Not really. Without my awareness, God had made my calling sure. He had planted a seed to a dream, to be watered along the way, to bear fruit in due season; a calling to a day unlike any other day. My journey had begun.

In the rural area where I live, people did not quite understand why anyone would park a perfectly good pickup truck and run anywhere. Sometimes I do not quite understand it myself. Thank God I dont have to understand it to enjoy and benefit from the experience.

Endurance sports began as an activity that warmed to a passion, which matured finally and firmly into a lifestyle. Within that journey is found again and again the joy, the innocence, and the sanity of a child at play.

And play, I did. For about 17 years, I ran the roads, chalking up thousands of miles. During that time, I ran several hundred 5Ks, numerous 10ks, half-marathons, and other running events of various distances to include thirty-two marathons.

When I retired from work, I already had another career that seemed to fit well. But then, something miraculous happened that seemed to change my course in thought and life.

On a sweltering day during a severe drought, driving down a country road immersed in thought. I guess I wasnt paying attention. In an instant, the front wheel got off the road. In the sudden panic reaction to getting back on the road, I oversteered, and suddenly I was out of control. The car swerved violently, and rolled over in the middle of the road, then rolled again into the ditch on the other side of the road.

I found myself hanging upside down by the seat belt, thankfully unhurt. The hood was crumpled a bit, allowing me to notice a tiny flame flickering near the engine. That little flame quickly grew into a fast-spreading blaze. I had to get out immediately. The door wouldnt work. Flames were almost inside the dashboard before I finally got loose from the seat belt. The fire was almost in the front seat as I climbed to the back. Where can I go? Do I have time to kick a window out?

As I looked to the right, to my amazement, the back window was down. How? Why? It was close to one hundred degrees outside, and I did not remember rolling down the rear window. No one had ridden back there lately. Why? Why would that window be down?

The fire was already in the front seat as I scrambled out the open window. I glanced back for my day planner and saw the flames consuming itthe written records of my planning and goals and important contacts, all in flames. As I ran down the road to warn a nearby house, fire consumed the entire vehicle. As I called 911, I heard one tire explode, then another. The fire licked high and angrily into the heavens. A plume of malevolent-looking black smoke could be seen for miles. There was nothing for the arriving firemen to do but let it burn out under control.

As we watched the vehicle burn, a highway patrolman told me I was quite lucky because often, people get thrown from the vehicle in these types of incidents, and the car rolls over them. A fireman listened as I told about the open window escape. He also said I was lucky. In a hyper state of awe and gratitude, I just could not hold it back. I had to put lucky to bed. I blurted out that luck had absolutely nothing to do with it. I had been blessed. This was my witness: I was not lucky. I had been blessed.

Over the next few months, I drove to that spot several times and tried to take in all that had happened there. All that remained was some burned roadside grass and the pile of ashes that, but for the Grace of God, I would have been a part. It gave me chills each time I visited that spot. And I thanked God for blessing me and saving me out and wondered what was next.

My burned-out vehicle at the junkyard.

Something had been changed. The second career had lost its luster. Something besides my planner had burned up in my car that day. It was truly a day, unlike any other day.

For a couple of years, I continued to run road races. Then, after running several more marathons, I decided to run them for cancer patients, survivors, and victims. I put their names and pictures on my race shirts and helped raise funds for cancer research. Marathon training and marathons were challenging and fun, and enduring for a cause was an especially rewarding pursuit.

However, there was this incessant reoccurring ironman vision that had to be dealt with. Each time it bubbled into consciousness, I quickly dismissed it as too big of a reach, best left to the better qualified the same thoughts and fears I experienced before my first marathon. But those whispers from the heart of just maybe and perhaps you can would not go away. Despite my pervasive self-doubts, the seeds of a flickering hope had sprouted and would not be denied growth.

Then one day, unexpectedly, the Ironman came on my television again. This time it was in color and on a widescreen. Within those moments while watching this inspiring event, years of nagging, negative thoughts faded to dim. In those moments, the spell of ironman clutched and held me like a large magnet. This time there was no escape. The quest wrapped its arms around me tightly and would not let me go until I had secretly resolved to try an ironman someday. Trying someday wasnt much of a commitment, but the passion and the dream had their first embers of reality.