Val and the Ironman

The year was 1977. Valerie Silk and her husband Hank were living in Honolulu, where they owned and managed Nautilus Fitness. One of the athletes who worked out there when he wasn’t driving a taxi, running or riding his bike was a young man named Gordon Haller. When Haller mentioned that he was training for some new event called the Ironman Triathlon that would happen in early 1978, and he needed some help with a support crew, Nautilus and the staff came on board as his sponsor.

Haller ended up winning that first Ironman, but Silk thought that the club and their staff had put way too many resources into the event. "Hank wanted to get more involved in this Ironman thing moving forward, but I thought it was absolute nonsense," remembers Silk. "They only had 15 athletes signed up in both 1978 and 1979. I saw this as an event that was going nowhere."

Commander John Collins and his wife Judy, the creators of the Ironman, came to Hank and Valerie one day and told them that John had received new orders, that the family would be leaving Hawaii and would Hank and Valerie like to take over the Ironman. "I was the numbers cruncher and could see this was a total loser," she laughs. "I said absolutely not... and my husband said ‘We'd love to.'"

In 1980, When Valerie and Hank went their separate ways, Valerie decided that even though she didn't swim, bike or run, she liked the idea of trying to organize something and she really liked the idea of potentially making a difference. "I wanted to influence lives," she says. "The fact that the Ironman was a sporting event was incidental to me. I wanted to help create a special experience for everyone who participated."

Once she realized everything that went into putting on an event like the Ironman, she was overwhelmed... and in way too deep to get out. "If I had known all of the details, I never would have done it," she admits. "But ignorance is bliss and I was as hapless, helpless and hopeless as they come."

Silk moved the event to The Big Island from Oahu for her first race in 1981, eliminated the individual support cars and created aid stations. After the 1980 show aired on ABC's Wide World of Sports, the numbers tripled from 108 in 1980 to 326 participants in 1981.

"I came back to Oahu after that 1981 race convinced the event was a total failure and I was a total failure," she says. "I spent three months in my apartment after the race recuperating. ‘That's it,' I said to myself. ‘I'm walking away from this.'"

Valerie Silk is the ultimate perfectionist - and she was learning firsthand that there is no such thing as the perfect race. But people loved the Ironman. Her ‘non-perfect' event in 1981 was so well received that 580 signed up for the February 1982 event and she not only had ABC coming over to film, but also an independent filmmaker by the name of Rodney Jacobs who owned Freewheelin' Films. They came over to Kona with a number of shooters and had actor and endurance athlete Bruce Dern on board as the host.

Valerie was a babe in the woods when it came to contracts. ABC had an exclusive agreement to shoot the Ironman, But Valerie was told that there would be no conflict, that ABC and Freewheelin' Films would have no problems co-existing.

Wrong.

"It was a nightmare," says Valerie. "I was so green in those days."

On race day, ABC felt that Freewheelin' Films was in their way all day long and they weren't very happy about it. Bryce Weisman, the producer for ABC, brought Valerie into their trailer near the finish line to show her how Freewheelin' Films had interfered with the ABC shoot. "I didn't quite know what I was looking for," Valerie recalls, "But while I was in with him, there was this huge commotion going on outside at the finish line. One of the cameramen comes running in and goes, ‘Bryce, you've got to see this,' but Bryce was busy telling me that he didn't know if they actually had any footage they could use in the show and frankly, he didn't know if they'd be paying us our rights fee since we violated the contract."

In the meantime, the same cameraman came back twice more to tell Weisman that he really needed to see what was happening at the finish line.

A young woman named Julie Moss, who had been leading for the better part of the marathon, was coming apart at the seams and Kathleen McCartney was closing in on her quickly. Moss had collapsed a number of times in the last 100 yards and was lying on the ground a few yards from the finish when McCartney passed her for the win. Then Moss, whose legs no longer could carry her, got on her hands and knees and crawled to the finish before collapsing one final time once she reached the line. 

It was amazing, it was electric and it was the moment that put Ironman and the sport of triathlon on the map.

And Valerie Silk, the woman who wanted to make a difference and ran the Ironman, missed every last second of it.

"Bryce had finally left to see what was happening at the finish," she says, "but not before telling me that he'd have a decision for me on Ironman's future after they looked at the footage in New York. I was totally demoralized. My staff was all going ‘Where were you? The finish was unbelievable!'"

Valerie Silk made her way to the medical tent to see how Julie Moss was doing. "Julie goes ‘Val, do you think second place is good enough for me to come back next year?' I told her ‘Sure, no problem' even though I knew that there would not be a next year, that the Ironman was history."

The footage was so ‘bad' and so ‘unusable' that ABC turned the show around faster than ever before. Julie Moss had given ABC and the sport a moment that everyone at home could identify with. No offense to Dave Scott and John Howard, who had won in 1980 and 1981 respectively, but they looked like they had been out for a stroll in the park as they crossed the finish line. They made it look way too easy. How many of the folks watching from their couches could relate to or identify with these guys? Probably not many.

But here was a freckled-faced young gal with red hair and a trucker's hat who could have been your next-door neighbor. She stumbled, she fell, she got up, she got passed, but she continued on. Winning was no longer the point. Finishing was. Why was getting to that finish line so damn important to Julie Moss and why the heck was this woman still smiling as they carted her off on a stretcher? People at home were inspired to find out for themselves.

And that became the Ironman mantra. No matter what it takes, no matter how long you're out there, no matter how bad it hurts, get to that finish line and you are an Ironman.

The first time Valerie Silk saw Julie Moss crawl to the line was when the ABC show aired. It touched a nerve with the American public and when the show ended with Julie Moss on a stretcher, the phone lines at ABC lit up like Times Square at Christmas. The week after the show aired, Julie Moss and Kathleen McCartney were flown to New York to show America that Moss had recovered and was fine. 

Valerie never spoke to Bryce Weisman again. But she did read a quote from him that made her laugh. "The best part for me was seeing an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal not long after the show aired," recalls Valerie. "He told the reporter that he always knew they had something special with the Ironman."

Bryce Weisman may not have known how special the Ironman was, but it didn't take long for Valerie to realize the positive impact her event could have. The Ironman is celebrating 30 years of changing lives this October. And a big reason for the success of the Ironman was the care, guidance and leadership of the event from a perfectionist by the name of Valerie Silk.

Happy anniversary, Val. Even though you don't swim, bike or run, you will always be an Ironman.