Lynette Bacon, local Mankato citizen, is turning 50 years old this upcoming Thursday. She has a husband (Steve Bacon) and three lovely daughters. Bacon was born and raised in Brookings, South Dakota, where she also attended some of college. After getting married at age 19, she moved to Las Vegas and attended the college of UNLV, but then finished her undergraduate degree in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She moved to Mankato about 24 years ago and hasn’t left since, but you could say that this crazy lady is NOT one to sit still.
When Lynette was 36 years old, she decided to do something she had never done before. She had always been active with swimming and she enjoyed biking, but the triathlon, the “Ironman,” would really challenge her skills. “The ‘Ironman’ was started in Hawaii and it was created by a group of swimmers, a group of bikers, and a group of runners,” says Lynette. “These people created it to see, out of all these activities performed consecutively, who would survive?” It consists of a 2.4 mile swim in the Gulf of Mexico, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and finishing with a marathon, or a 26.2-mile run.
I asked Lynette why the heck she would do something like this, not once, but twice now, and she replied with “because I’m turning 50!” She said that she loved it when she did it the first time and she just really wanted to see if she could do it again and she wanted to challenge herself.
Well, she most definitely pushed herself in preparing for this race, which started months in advance. Given that one has to sign up a year in advance, Lynette would swim 3-4 days a week, going a distance of 2-3 miles every time. She did a total of seven 100-mile bike rides. Despite a very painful knee injury, she did her best to run 3 days a week, her farthest being 17 miles at one time.
I asked Bacon what it was like during the race and how it affected her, and she responded with, “the swim was amazing, in the ocean with the other 3000 people surrounding me at a quarter to seven. I was the first out of the water for my age group and I felt great.” Again, she felt rewarded by being third place in her age group after the coming out of the bike portion of the race. She said that the bike ride was her favorite because the passing of people alongside her was comforting. They were not allowed to bike with a partner, but were allowed to tell one another “great job” or “keep going.” Every 10-15 miles she would be putting something into her body, such as a few bites of a protein bar or gatorade to keep taking in calories so that she continued to have enough energy throughout. She told me that the run was “just survival” and that, with her knee injury, she had to accommodate. She ran the first 6.5 miles, then ran/walked the next 14 until she had to walk.
Lynette dedicated her success to all the prayers she had come her way from close friends and family. She admits she could not have done it alone and that the outcome of this race made her grateful for those people and that, at her age now, she is lucky enough to have a body that can endure such a thing as the “Ironman.”
My last question to this Ironwoman herself was if she would ever consider participating in it again. Her response, “OH YES! Not saying I will, but I sure would.”