It wasn’t always the smoothest path to get there, but, on Nov. 16, Steve Cassingham found himself in Tempe, Ariz. participating in his first Ironman competition.
Over the course of a grueling 11 hours and 49 minutes, the Santa Cruz resident swam for 2.4 miles, cycled for 112 miles, and topped it all off by running a full 26.2-mile marathon — finishing seventh in his age group, and 542nd out of some 3,000 other racers.
For the 23-year-old Cassingham — who grew up just outside Scotts Valley and attended Brook Knoll Elementary School and Scotts Valley Middle School before attending Bellarmine College Preparatory — competing in the Ironman was just the next logical step in an athletic career that took off when he was a student at Arizona State University when a friend turned him on to competing in triathlons.
“I kind of fell into triathlon — I’ve never been a cyclist and I hate running,” said Cassingham, who, until that point had been more or less exclusively a swimmer.
Even so, he said, his friend sold him a racing bicycle and the accompanying equipment, and he was on his way. He began competing in Olympic-distance triathlons — one-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, and 10-kilometer run — on the ASU team shortly thereafter.
Once he graduated, however, Cassingham said that his competitive nature drove him to find the next challenge — the half-Ironman — in which he competed in several between 2012 and 2013.
When he placed third in his age group in a half-Ironman in October 2013, with a finishing time under 5 hours, he stepped it up yet again.
“After that, I just wanted to do a full one,” Cassingham said. “People thought I was crazy after only two years of racing — you want to challenge yourself.”
For most of 2014, he trained to race in the Ironman race that was scheduled for Sept. 21 at Lake Tahoe, even going so far as to temporarily relocate there to acclimate to the thinner air.
Ten minutes before the start of the race, however, officials canceled the race due to the smoke from the nearby King Fire.
“That was a huge frustration — there were 1,700 runners at Tahoe,” Cassingham said.
It was frustrating, he said, not only because of how close to start time the cancelation had come and the nearly $800 that each runner had spent on entry fees, but also because it meant another two months of maintaining his intense training regimen to compete in the November Ironman race in Arizona.
“I’ll usually do two workouts a day,” Cassingham said, adding that he had been self-coached during this year’s training. Next year, he will begin working with coach Nate Dressel of Monterey, who developed a reputation as a coach at Northern Arizona University.
His workouts normally consisted of working on the training bike, as well as yoga and weight lifting to build lean muscle. “You mix speed and distance workouts.”
His diet during the training, he said, was heavy on carbohydrates, electrolytes, and fruits and vegetables.
“I would eat a lot — if I’m that hungry, I will eat a pound of pasta,” Cassingham said. “I need the carbs and I need the salt.”
When the day of the race arrived in Tempe, Cassingham had the benefit of being on his home turf, as the course was where he had trained during his collegiate career.
As 3,000 athletes crowded around Tempe Town Lake — a manmade body of what Cassingham described as “gross, stagnant water” — at sunrise, the starter’s cannon sent the entire crowd into the water at once.
He described his determination to make it out in front of the crowd at any cost, as so many people swimming so closely simultaneously can — and has — led to drownings in past races.
“The swim is about adrenaline, the bike is about strategy, and the run is about heart,” Cassingham said.
After placing sixth in his age group during the swim, he quickly changed out of his wetsuit and into cycling gear for the 112-mile ride, which consisted of three 37-mile laps.
“You’re looking at six hours on a bike,” Cassingham said, adding that to maintain speed and minimize wind resistance, the riders wore specialized helmets and rode in a semi-crouched position. “Aerodynamics is everything — just by wearing that helmet you can save 30 minutes.”
In that crouched position, Cassingham had access to a reservoir of electrolyte mixture to maintain his nutrition.
“If you mess up your nutrition on the bike, it’s going to get you later,” he said. “You have to plan ahead … you don’t want your body to shut down.”
It was roughly midway through his ride, that Cassingham noticed that the plastic straw to his liquid reservoir had disappeared somewhere along the way.
“That was a major ‘oh s—t’ moment,” he said.
Without his main source of hydration and electrolytes, Cassingham had to improvise — between grabbing extra sports drinks and chugging bottles of water at aid stations.
It helped, he said, but irregular nutrition and hydration caught up with him during the run.
“I did an 8-minute mile for the first mile,” Cassingham said. “But, on the second mile, my body just shut down — I went from running 8-minute miles to 11-minute miles.”
Forcing his exhausted body to continue, Cassingham managed to power through and finish the full marathon, finishing the day with a time of 11 hours, 49 minutes.
“You just get this uplifting feeling when you cross that chute,” he said. “People are going crazy cheering.”
Looking back on the day, Cassingham admitted that it had been a daunting endeavor, both mentally and physically.
“You question yourself a lot during the day,” he said. “It’s very much a mental game — you’re literally just out there with your thoughts the whole time and you have to find a way to push through.”
In 2015, Cassingham said he plans to simultaneously work on his burgeoning film business — Metastyle Films — as well as train for Ironman-style races in Napa and Bend, Ore.
“I’ve had to learn to have a pretty decent schedule,” he said with a laugh.
