In each monthly issue, Runner Triathlete News will publish one chapter from the new book "Becoming an Ironman." This month's story begins in the November 2001 issue of RTN.

To order your copy of "Becoming an Ironman: First Encounters with the Ultimate Endurance Event," send $23 per copy (plus $2.95 per order for shipping/handling) to Runner Triathlete News, P.O. Box 19909, Houston, TX 77224. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery

The wind really picked up on the second loop and I lost time. The main thing I focused on was getting lots of food into my body to prepare for the run. The bike was long and I didn't meet too many people who wanted to chat, so it was a bit lonely. I began to realize that I'm a socializer and that's what energizes me.

I made the bike cutoff with fifteen minutes to spare and got changed into my running clothes. It took me about fifteen minutes to change, go to the bathroom, and drink some Coke (I never drink Coke, but I needed the caffeine as I missed my nap that day). Best of all, my glasses were in my bike-to-run bag! Now I would be able to see the run course, but unfortunately it would be pitch black.It was 5:30 in the evening and I was beginning my very first marathon. I was thinking how great it was to be there, to be alive, to have been inspired by a team of folks in California, to have Bob and Timothy cheering me on along with my cousins and aunt, to have my dad and sweet Emily with me, as well as so much support and love from angels seen and unseen. I truly felt surrounded.

I see now that miracles happen. The loss of Emily broke my heart deeper than any heartbreak I have ever known. But it also made my heart expand. I discovered I was capable of enduring more pain, more joy, more sadness, more love. Losing her wasn't what I expected. Neither was doing an Ironman. And that is a miracle. The run was my biggest concern before the race, being uncharted territory. It turned out to be my favorite part because there were so many people to talk to. I felt so strong, so good, just keeping my slow and steady pace, kind of like a turtle. And if I saw someone who didn't look good, I stopped to see how they were doing.

One woman, Peggy, was ready to break down and cry. The tears began to flow when I stopped to walk with her. I asked what she was feeling and she said, "I can't go on. It's my stomach. I've never felt this before. I just can't continue."

I noticed she had a pierced eyebrow and figured she'd be open to some alternative suggestions for healing. I told her about hands, especially the palms and how healing they are. I made a suggestion that she imagine breathing in the healing energy of the nature around us and place her palm over her abdomen. Next I suggested that she breathe out to imagine letting go of any negative feelings, any discomfort, and then to aim her palms outward.

She listened as we continued to walk, her face still distorted in pain, and she told me she was a physician. Hello! Here I was telling a doctor that hands are healing! But get this: She finished the race and the next night at the awards dinner thanked me for helping her finish. She said she had never heard the suggestion that I had given her, and we talked about the importance and meaning of moving through difficult moments in life. How everything happens the way it is supposed to at the exact right moment.

At 8 p.m. I came into town. I was at mile eleven. Timothy was barely awake.

This course is a bit strange in that when you come into town, you can see the finish line, but then you turn to run up a hill out of town for a mile, turn around, and come back. So mile eleven also is mile thirteen. Miles eleven to thirteen felt like the longest two miles ever. I wondered how it would feel at mile twenty-four.

I retrieved my special-needs bag and got stuff to eat, grabbed my long-sleeved shirt, and headed back toward the crowd. By 8:30 p.m. I was back in town. I asked Bob, "Am I going to make it?" referring to the seventeen-hour cutoff. "Oh, definitely! I've done the math!" he reassured me.

It was getting dark and chilly. I came to the aid station near the bar where the volunteers were getting sillier and sillier each time I passed. "You go Irongirlllll," they called out more slurred each time around. I danced with them on one stop. The music was incredibly loud.

At mile sixteen I put on my long-sleeved shirt, which had been wrapped around my waist, and got more to eat and drink -- a little salt, some chips, another GU, some Endurox R4, and off I went. It was pitch black. In between the generator lights I couldn't see anything. And then the fog began to roll in. I didn't have a glow stick and I was running alone and began to get a little spooked.

I saw a chair when I got to the aid station at mile eighteen. I asked if I could take a seat. Wow. It was one of those cheap lawn chairs, but I felt like I was on the most comfortable chair in the world. By this point I had been moving for more than fifteen hours. To sit for a moment was heavenly. I knew many would not agree with this approach, but it felt too good and after stretching a bit, I felt like a new woman.

Before I got too comfortable, a woman walked by wearing a Team- In-Training T-shirt. I was so happy to see another person that I quickly caught up to her. Jackie was from Kansas City, and there were nine members on her team. I told her about our team in California and how it inspired me.

We walked to mile nineteen and decided to pay attention to our time. We walked with a little bit of a jog and a lot of talking. I needed to urinate about twice every mile. Jackie kept the pace and I would catch up and walk again.

At mile twenty I announced, "We are keeping a fifteen-minute-per- mile pace and if we keep it up we will definitely make it!" We were still walking, but trying to jog. I began feeling a wave of nausea and Jackie suggested drinking Coke. Ewww. I tried some Coke at the next aid station, just a couple of sips, and it helped.

Suddenly my cousin Michael appeared from the darkness. He tried to get me to go faster . . . as if! He ran about three paces ahead of us. I kept jogging, and Jackie did too. We made it to mile twenty-two. This was the farthest I had ever run in my life. I had a little inner victory going as I kept moving forward.

Michael kept going and talking and talking. He was a great diversion, though Jackie pulled ahead of us, I think to get some quiet. Mile twenty-three was uphill. I ran that mile in thirteen minutes. I knew I could make it in before midnight. Plenty of time.

It was 11:30 p.m. when I saw mile twenty-four. Michael kissed me good-bye and passed the torch to Bob, who began to pace me for the end . . . that two-mile loop that leaves town and returns again.

Surprisingly, Bob was not his usual calm self. He was filled with nervous excitement and told me to keep jogging. "From now on, you can't walk at all," he said. Well, that didn't go over too well, so I walked. He was beside himself. I think if he could, he would have picked me up and run with me in his arms just to be sure I made the cutoff. But I knew I was going to make it and told him not to worry.

It was Bob's personal schedule I followed for the last twelve weeks of my training. It was Bob whom I came to with my training questions. It was Bob's willingness to reschedule his workouts so I could do my own . . . Bob's support, love and presence throughout the whole long year that saw me to the finish line. And during all this time he was training for Ironman Canada, which was two weeks later.

He was hopping up and down, running backward and forward just wanting me to move a little faster. I knew my pace, I knew the time, and I just kept moving forward. Perhaps I was a bit ignorant of the reality. In hindsight, I really could have missed the cutoff. I asked him to tell me a story.

"Once upon a time there was a girl who missed the cutoff of her first ironman by three seconds because she wouldn't move a little faster." This was so intense for Bob. He was trying to impart to me that I could DNF by seconds because I was taking my time. I had looked at the cutoff as a goal. Like a credit-card limit. That's what I had to spend -- seventeen hours.

It was 11:43 p.m. when I reached mile twenty-five. I was feeling relaxed with lots of energy.

11:55 p.m. Mile twenty-six. Bob was still with me and things were getting pretty exciting.

11:56 p.m. Bob kissed me good-bye and leaped away like a gazelle. Later I heard how he jumped barricades, climbed six- foot walls, was caught in the arms of spectators and eventually the crowd stepped back to let him through. Bob told me, "It was like the parting of the Red Sea."

As I entered the arena, I held a picture of Emily and the emotion began to well up. I began to cry and could barely breathe. I made my way around the final turn before the chute. There were hundreds of people there . . . all cheering and screaming and high-fiving the whole way. The scene will be forever etched in my mind.

I looked up at the clock -- 16:57:25 -- and I thought to myself, "Hey look! I have plenty of time!"

There was Bob, all smiles, reaching out for me, a medal in his hand. Timothy was fast asleep in the Baby Jogger, face tipped up to the stars.

At 11:57:44 p.m. I came across the finish line with a big smile, arms up high, holding the picture of Emily. Bob picked me up into the air -- just scooped me right up. "I did it! I am an Ironman!"

Just to be able to take on this challenge I thought was impossible and then to be able to do it makes me see myself in a way I've never seen myself before. But it's hard to explain. I have searched for a way to describe the indescribable. I feel as though I climbed this huge mountain, saw an incredible vista, and now I am back on the ground, trying to relate what it looked like. I suppose there are words . . . somewhere . . . but it's like trying to describe childbirth or God or making love. It is so incredibly personal and intimate. The Ironman was way more than I had ever expected: more enjoyable, more beautiful, more peaceful, more fun, more exciting, more spiritual, more emotional, more social. Just more.

Terry, Bob, and Timothy live in Alexandria, Virginia. Triathlon remains a focal point in their family.