Testing her mettle
Completing the grueling Ironman is just another item to check off for lifelong athlete
Kristen Hislop completed her first Ironman this spring, finishing the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run in 12 hours, 29 minutes.
Hislop has been a triathlete most of her adult life, but at 48 chose to tackle the hardest of them all.
The Ironman is twice the distance of any triathlon she competed in before.
After I graduated from Hamilton College, I moved to New York City to work at the Federal Reserve Bank.
When I moved to Boulder, I biked back and forth to the University of Colorado, where I was teaching.
In 1992, a group of people I was friends with talked me into doing a triathlon.
When the swim was over, I jumped on my bike all excited and ready to go, started pedaling, and the chain fell off.
How did having kids change your training and racing regimen?
Luckily, I was surrounded by a community — even though I was advanced maternal age because I was older than 35 — that supported athletic women.
When I was pregnant for Jack — he was born 23 months later — I did less, just because I already had a little one at home and it was harder.
When I started running, I ended up with stress fractures in both legs.
A few miles from the finish, my right foot was in excruciating pain.
Instead of stopping to ask for help or dropping out, I ran to the finish and went into the medical tent.
Instead of focusing exclusively on your own training, you also take time to work with first-time runners as part of the Freihofer's Run for Women.
During the bike I had shooting pains in my shoulders, but my legs felt good, so I thought about that.