What an extreme ironman taught me about leadership
I’d like to share a story with you. A story about me, about the past few mistakes I made and the lessons they taught me about leadership.
A few days ago, a friend of mine asked me for a favor. He is a passionate triathlete, an ironman, and a person I care about. We usually share our sports dreams and objectives, but he sometimes dreams more than me. Last few years, I heard from him a story about Winterman, an extreme triathlon race. What do I mean by extreme?
You jump into the Elbe river at 5am (literally at night for me) and swim 9km when the outside temperature is hardly above 3 degrees Celsius. Then you sit on a bike, it’s still nighttime — believe it or not, an autumn 6am is still a dark night — and ride over 180km with 3500m of climbing. After this, it’s time for the run. Suppose you are still alive following the 42km of running — then the last 12km uphill climb on the Jested mountain will prove your readiness. You cannot do it alone. It’s not allowed because it’s too dangerous. Each athlete must have a support guy who helps him through the race, taking care of his food supplements, clothes, etc.
In this race, my friend and I were a team as I was his support. An athlete and his support are supposed to finish together. It’s symbolic because they win or lose together.
We arranged a refreshment strategy for the running part of the race. That’s the most challenging part because you are running out of physical and mental energy. Supplying energy is crucial. A mistake can be fatal. And I made one. Before the race we identified places approximately every 5km where I could supply energy since you cannot not do it just anywhere due to traffic restrictions.
At one checkpoint, I ask my friend how far until the next one because he knows the course. He tells me its 6km. That gives me 30m to get there based on his running pace. So I make a stop at a gas station and buy a coffee for him and petrol for my car. I get back in my car and miss him because the point wasn’t 6km away but only 3km. He is now running on a trail part of the course 15m ahead of me. I drive to the next rendezvous point and wait for him. His last refresh was on the 11th km — 12 km ago. When I see his face, I realize he would kill me if he had enough strength. Regardless of what he told me about the distance between two checkpoints, it was solely my responsibility and my mistake. He relied on me, I was his support.
I screwed that up. I feed him as many carbohydrates and energy drinks as his stomach can handle and start praying. A pain in his right knee makes it even worse.
So, I tell him: I know I screwed that up, but you cannot give up with only 12km to go. I didn’t mention it’s going to be uphill since we both knew that. I leave my car, put my running shoes on and pack some energy gels. We start to run slowly and his mood starts picking back up after a few kilometers. I cheer him up by recalling past obstacles we overcame together. In the middle of the hill, we see another athlete and his support ahead of us. A strange moment happens. My friend starts raising our pace until we leave the other pair hundreds of meters behind us. The rest of the story is part of history. He climbed on Jested like a mountain goat and finished in 22nd place and a time of 12 hours 59 minutes.
The bottom line of this story is not that I screw things and someone else fixes the mess. I hope so. The bottom line is that leadership is mainly about two things, at least for me. A true leader cheers you up when you are down and leads you by example. And last but not least, a leader knows you win or lose as a team.
