Local Resident Completes IRONMAN Wisconsin; Describes 140 Miles As "Probably Not Recommended"

WAUKESHA — Dennis Kowalski, 42, of South Waukesha crossed the finish line of IRONMAN Wisconsin in Madison at 9:47 p.m. Sunday, becoming one of several hundred athletes to complete the race's 2.4-mile open-water swim, 112-mile bicycle ride, and 26.2-mile run in a single day, an achievement he described afterward, while seated on a curb outside the Alliant Energy Center, as "definitely sore" and "probably not recommended."

Kowalski finished in 14 hours, 52 minutes, a time he said he was proud of and would not be attempting to improve upon. His wife, Charlene Kowalski, 40, said the race capped eight months of training that consumed most weekend mornings, several vacation days, and the couple's garage, which has functioned since February as a bicycle repair area and, more recently, as storage for finisher merchandise Kowalski purchased before technically finishing.

"His training was the only thing he discussed for eight months," Charlene Kowalski said. "The race itself looked completely miserable. I watched him swim past our spot on the shore and he had this look on his face like a man remembering he left the oven on, except the oven was 138 more miles."

The Swim, The Bike, The Wall

Kowalski said the swim, held in Lake Monona, went "about as expected," a phrase he later clarified meant he was kicked in the goggles twice and swallowed what he estimated to be "a non-zero amount" of lake. The bike leg, a two-loop course through the hills west of Madison, is where Kowalski said his outlook first began to shift, somewhere around mile 70, when he passed a spectator holding a sign that read "YOU'RE ALMOST HALFWAY" and found the sign, in his words, "medically accurate and deeply upsetting."

The run, a full marathon on tired legs, began just after 3 p.m. Kowalski said he adopted a run-walk strategy around mile 9 that his training plan referred to as "the Galloway method" and that he privately referred to as "walking." He said he consumed, over the course of the run, four energy gels, half a banana handed to him by a stranger, and a cup of what a volunteer told him was chicken broth but which he now believes, "with the benefit of hindsight and a clearer stomach," was not.

"Somewhere around mile 20 I stopped thinking in miles and started thinking in aid stations. Somewhere around mile 24 I stopped thinking."

— Dennis Kowalski, IRONMAN Wisconsin finisher

The Finish

Race organizers report that 89 percent of this year's finishers say they intend to return for next year's event, a statistic Kowalski said he found "borderline unbelievable" roughly six hours after finishing and "actually kind of understandable" by Monday morning, a shift Charlene Kowalski attributed to sleep, a large breakfast, and what she called "the amnesia part everybody warned me about."

Kowalski said he plans to keep his finisher medal, a 2013 Buick Enclave's worth of race nutrition wrappers currently balled up in his gym bag, and his official IRONMAN Wisconsin finisher hoodie, purchased at the merchandise tent at approximately mile 90 of the bike course, a purchase he made, he said, "on faith, and also because the line was short at the time and I did not know if I would still be capable of standing in a line later."

Asked whether he would attempt another full-distance IRONMAN, Kowalski paused for several seconds before answering that he had "no current plans," a phrase Charlene Kowalski noted is identical to the one he used in January before signing up for this one. Kowalski's training log, which he has kept since February in a spiral notebook on the kitchen counter, remains, as of Monday, open to a blank page.

The Kowalskis said they plan to spend the coming weekend doing nothing in particular, a category of activity Dennis Kowalski said he has not attempted since roughly last December.