(Are we at the Ironman yet?)
Nope, we are fewer than two weeks away and in The Jewish Link offices being interviewed.
(You are not going to transcribe the whole interview for us here, are you?)
No, but I here is the link so you can watch the full interview:
(They recorded it?)
It’s 2024, you can find a recording of almost everything online.
(So, what were you saying?)
I was talking about what it has been like wearing tzitzis on the racecourse.
Me: “On a racecourse it has been nothing but positive. Israelis and other Jews call out “Shalom!””
Elizabeth: You get “bagelled” a lot?
Me: “I get bagelled a lot”.
Moshe: “You’re doing crazy stuff, but I put you in the paper because I want people to see what people are capable of.”
Me: “I figured early on, if I’m going to make a lot of noise, make it something ‘for good.’ I’m a special ed. teacher. My whole goal in life is to make others feel like they ‘can.’ If you show people that the impossible is possible, they will believe they can get that done.”
Elizabeth: “Can we talk about the danger zones you put yourself in?”
Me: “I am nothing without my wife Janet. She is beyond just my cheerleader, my rock of strength. She is also my litmus test. If I tell her about an idea and she says that’s crazy, then “Here we go!” If she says it sounds dangerous, then I stop and discuss the idea with her. I am aware that people are looking, so I always weigh the pros and cons of what I’m planning. When I swim at Brighton Beach, my swim buddy Shlomo Rosenzweig has made it clear that we have to be extra careful. It doesn’t matter that I am a certified lifeguard.
Elizabeth: “Are you talking about the Polar Bear swim, ice thing?”
Me: “I’ve done the Polar Bear. On January 1, I go out, I swim a couple hundred yards and I swim back. I never push myself beyond my range. Or if I go out running in the middle of the winter and it’s freezing cold, I do not know why I can run in shorts, in snow, in 20 F and I’m not cold. Mind you I have a head covered in snow, but there is always an understanding of “What is the danger of this?” As the Bike4Chai coach, I always tell the riders that the first rule of cycling is…”
Moshe and Elizabeth: “Always wear a helmet.”
Me: “One of the reasons I love cycling indoors is it’s me and Netflix and a bag of chips and no cars…
Elizabeth: “You eat chips while riding the stationary bike? This is like peeling the onion.”
Me: “One of the great things about burning these many calories, is that before a marathon or Ironman, I will go into Sushi Metsuyan here in Teaneck and order a sushi boat … just for myself.”
Moshe: “And whole pizzas?”
Me: “Biking 75 to 100 miles in training will make you hungry enough to eat a whole pizza. I weighed myself before and after Ironman Lake Placid this year. I lost 7.8 pounds … in 15 hours of racing.”
Moshe: “You know, in almost every episode, you have some near crisis?”
Me: “You just answered the question, ‘Does my publisher read my material?’”
—Everyone laughed—
Me: “One of the things Harriet Levitt, my English teacher at MTA had taught me was to keep the reader engaged. When I‘m swimming, biking or running, I’m thinking, “How do I describe what I am experiencing in a way where I can bring my readers with me? Because I am dyslexic and I have anxiety that tends to come with that, I didn’t learn to read or write until I was 10 years old. So, it became, ”How do I take what I see in my head and bring people there?”
Moshe: “You write in a very stream-of-consciousness style. The editors didn’t know what to do with your style in the beginning. I had to calm them down.”
Elizabeth: “You were talking to yourself.”
Me: “My 11th and 12th grade English teacher, Mrs. Levitt, and Mr. Bernstein my 10th grade English teacher got me to understand that Shakespeare would put in stage directions. As a writer, I need to give the audience a sense of what I’m hearing and seeing. When I am running at an Ironman, I will dictate to my phone what happened on the swim and the bike, so I do not forget those little details.
Elizabeth: “What can our readers expect in the coming weeks?”
Moshe: “I hear there’s another Ironman coming up in a week or two…”
Me: “I have been invited to compete at the Ironman World Championships, in Nice, France and I may have bitten off too much. There is a 13 mile climb into the mountains and I am concerned that I may miss the bike cut off … but that’s what growth is about. Put yourself outside your comfort zone.”
David Roher is a USAT certified triathlon and marathon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and veteran special education teacher. He is on Instagram @David Roher140.6. He can be reached at [email protected].
