Dad and son playing Wiffle ball

- By Taylor Plimpton -

My father’s voice was like one of those supposedly extinct deep-sea creatures that wash up on the shores of Argentina every now and then. It came from a different era, shouldn’t have still existed, but nevertheless, there it was—old New England, old New York, tinged with a hint of King’s College King’s English. You heard it and it could only be him.

Read more.

George Plimpton

Tickets are available for the world premiere of Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself. The documentary film about the man who did it all will be at the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival in Washington, D.C. The premiere showing is on June 21 at 8:30 p.m. The film will also be shown on June 23 at 12 p.m. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 1.

Plimpton with the Lions

From Stephanie Merry reporting in the Washington Post:

The carefully curated 114 films of the 10th annual Silverdocs film festival, running Monday through June 24, make one thing clear: There is no magic ingredient that makes a documentary great. But finding a special individual never hurts.

Here’s a sampling of character-driven true-life tales, capable of making viewers care about such disparate topics as clean water in Haiti, weightlifting lingo and the band behind the timeless earworm “Don’t Stop Believin’. ”

‘Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself’

How many people have been described by journalistic great Gay Talese as a “graceful, captivating writer” and termed a “class act” by Hugh Hefner? … Read more.

Plimpton at Lions training camp.

The trailer for Plimpton! debuted on Indiewire, the leading news and information website for independent-minded filmmakers, the industry and moviegoers alike.

Scott Raab

Scott Raab hates Lebron James. He even wrote a book about it. Well, sort of, but not really… He did write the book, but The Whore of Akron really isn’t just a hateful rant about the Ohio-bred hoopster who infamously took his “talents to South Beach.” While it is a linguistic evisceration of James, it also humanizes the despised superstar while serving as both an ode to the Cleveland sports fan and a partial memoir for Raab.

Raab came to journalism via the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, an esteemed program known for churning out award-winning fiction writers. For the last 20 years Raab has written for magazines, first GQ and now Esquire. He has written Esquire’s series on the rebuilding of Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He is also known for his celebrity profiles and interviews. Along the way and while on the job, Raab smoked weed with Tupac, got a Chief Wahoo tattoo with Dennis Rodman and wore an Iron Man t-shirt on the streets of Venice, Calif. while interviewing Robert Downey Jr. the on-screen version of the comic book character.

In the following interview Raab talks about his mom, Lebron, Cleveland and boxing a woman.

Jerry Barca: You are kind of an open book.

Scott Raab: Yeah, I’ve always been that way. I’m a pretty happy guy actually. But I came up so miserable and I was like that from an early age. Before my parents split up, which you can look at legitimately as a watershed moment, I was just moody. My father used to say, “We’re going for a ride and you’re not bringing a book.” I was always inward looking, but after a certain point I kind of had a fuck-it attitude. When I started writing seriously I was pretty young and my classmates laughed at me so I just stopped turning in my work.

JB: When was the first time that happened?

SR: It was sixth grade and they made fun of the poetry I was writing and I was really hurt by that. I still have my report card: “Stopped turning in work.” I was very unhappy and I started getting fat at the same time because I was living at my grandparents’ house. My grandmother would feed us all day and then my mother would come from work and say, “We’re going to eat dinner like a family.” So I would have two dinners. At some point along the way, by the time I started thinking of writing as not just something I thought I had to do, but as the only thing I was actually good for, I was in my 20s. I think about being an open book, I was going to write about whatever I felt like writing about. If the family didn’t like it or anyone else didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves, I didn’t care.

JB: Do you remember the poem from sixth grade?

SR: Yeah. We had spent a week at a camp, a sleep away thing. I was away from the family and a really nasty house. It was kind of a transcendent experience even though I’m not a nature guy. So I wrote a poem and it had a refrain that went “God is nigh.” At one point – and I can’t remember if I made this up or if it happened – there was a wounded bird and one of the counselors, who I’m sure I adored, helped nurse the bird back to health and that was what the poem was building toward – the nearness of God. I’m sure it wasn’t a really good poem. Part of it was that I entered the class in the sixth grade as this broken-home kid. This class had been together all through elementary school and they were what would now be called gifted and talented. I started gaining weight; it was not like I was going bowling with prettiest girl or anything like that. But the poem was more of a sensitive-boy poem.

JB: Who encouraged you? Who said, “you might have something here?”

SR: The people who really encouraged me were the people who were doing the writing that I was reading. My mother threw out Portnoy’s Complaint because it was hugely controversial when it was published in 1969 and I was 17 that summer. It’s a seminal novel about a Jewish guy who grows up obsessed with masturbating, obsessed with sex. It’s Philip Roth’s turn from being a serious, although somewhat plodding novelist, to becoming the guy I consider the greatest American novelist ever. That and Charles Bukowksi a little later after I started getting loaded all the time. Reading writers encouraged me, but no one in my life.

More than a sports book, Raab takes readers on a fan's personal journey from Cleveland to Miami.

JB: Did your mother have any reaction to The Whore of Akron?

SR: She didn’t talk to me for months.

JB: She read the book?

SR: I wouldn’t call it reading. She went through the book looking for passages about her and then she would call my brothers and read them the passages. Of course, she’d leave out the parts that weren’t entirely nasty. So, there was kind of a scorched earth campaign because she really felt that I had waited all these years and to her the book was entirely about her.

Then I saw her and she said, “I thought we were closer,” which is kind of funny because she hasn’t been at my house since Gore and Bush were debating Florida. This is a very difficult relationship.

JB: This was a shock to her?

SR: No. Nor was it so different from a piece of fiction I published 20 years ago in terms of some of the dirty laundry. But when she said that to me, it was a chance for me to say, “We are closer. This is just a book. This is just a version.”

“Now, my friends are going to read it,” she said.

“First of all your friends aren’t going to get through it. Secondly, if they think less of you rather than the schtunk who wrote it, were they really your friends?”

“Well, ah, ah, I’m seeing a counselor thanks to you and I had to double my anti-depressants.”

She did the best she could given her resources and the circumstances. As frontloaded as I like to think my misery is there is worse misery all over. You don’t have to go to Darfur to find the monstrous abuse of children that I never suffered and I’ve milked mine for dramatic narrative purposes. The truth of the matter is I’ve had a long, very nice life, creatively and personally. I have to own up to using her and using that material in a way. I don’t think it was meant to engender sympathy, but certainly drama. It’s narrative. It’s real, but it doesn’t mean it’s not simply employed for the purpose of narrative.

JB: A lot of times from a journalistic perspective I feel we’re takers.

SR: Absolutely. It’s true. Parasites. I have been doing a series of stories since 2005 about the rebuilding of Ground Zero, the World Trade Center. The last time I wrote a feature and the through line character was a fella whose wife went to work that day and died in the North Tower when the first plane hit. So here’s a guy, who is somewhat media savvy, who is vetting me to make sure I’m not totally going to fuck up what happened to him. Even though he is a little media savvy he’s still a civilian. He’s not an actor or an athlete. He’s not a public figure. He lost his wife on 9-11 and without him I don’t have a story worth writing or reading. In that sense, you know how much you owe someone and what a parasite you really are in a lot of ways. There have been a lot of stories over the years – nothing to do with profiling celebrities – that I’ve felt strongly that way and that was the most recent one.

Now, I’m trying to generate another chapter about the rebuilding and I’m trying to find iron workers who work at the top of the rebuilt Tower One. This is a much happier circumstance, to say the least, than someone whose wife was killed, but it is still the same kind of thing. “I need you as a character man. I’m going to engage with you as if this is a very meaningful relationship to me. It’s meaningful to me because I need you for a character in the next story I’m writing.”

So, I’m hyper-aware of that.

JB: How do you reconcile this? You have a tremendous amount of self-awareness—

SR: Tremendous. I’ve read a lot of Janet Malcolm. She is someone who has written extensively about this. I’ve thought about it for many years. The morality of it depends on what you do, what you write and how you relate to that person. It all depends on what words you want to put on it, in terms of “taker” or “parasite.” I’m not an ethical relativist, but I don’t think there is anything inherently immoral or wrong about the relationship between writer and subject or writer and source. I don’t think, in and of itself, that it is an immoral relationship. I think it depends on what you’re writing and what you’re doing.

Ann Wolfe

JB: You boxed Ann Wolfe; she is no joke. What were you thinking?

SR: I was thinking I was going to be boxing Vonda Ward. Then Ann Wolfe concussed Vonda Ward. If you could have heard the conversations between me and my editors when Vonda Ward was concussed and could not participate. We tried to find other people to avoid a confrontation with Ann Wolfe — the magazine asked me to sign a waiver. I said, “Why so you can leave my wife and son bereft in case this woman kills me?”

JB: She is no bullshit.

SR: No. Have you seen her fight?

JB: Yeah.

SR: We both arrived in Cleveland on Saturday the day of the fight. We met in the gym and sparred a little. She was so strong and so quick and not just her feet, but her hands. At no point in my life have I been quick that didn’t involve my brain. Physically, it never has been, never will be. I was so terrified because I knew a lot about Vonda Ward, including that she was basically a big stiff. Not that I was going to win against Ward, but at least I wasn’t terrified. Ann Wolfe? I knew little about. She had been incarcerated. She had been homeless and she was clearly letting me know in the sparring session, physically letting me know, who was the Alpha male. I really contemplated driving home rather than going through with it. I think I’m the only person who has seen a tape of the fight, and I look like a drugged bear. There is a point at which she landed three of four body shots and when my hands went down she kissed me on the cheek. She wasn’t trying to be mean or cruel, but she was toying with me. If I threw four real punches in three rounds I’d be surprised. I was almost paralyzed by fear.

JB: The same outcome, but that was a little different than George Plimpton fighting Archie Moore.

SR: That was heavily Plimpton influenced. I first came across Plimpton in a sports and literature class in a short-lived return to Cleveland State. I think that was where I first read Paper Lion. I still have almost all The Paris Reviews. I was always jealous of him in the exactly the same way I was jealous of people who had cars. I used to wait for the bus and watch people drive by in their cars and wonder how they got their cars. I would read Plimpton and wonder how he got to training camp. I used to attribute all kinds of magical things based on whatever little stuff I knew. “Oh, well he’s some patrician, Harvard motherfucker.” It never occurred to me – anymore than it occurred to me that people who had cars earned money to have those cars – that Plimpton worked his ass off as both a writer and someone who could participate at some level that wasn’t entirely laughable. Then I read him.

JB: Do you think people miss the point of The Whore of Akron and do you care?

SR: I do. I really do care a lot. I’ve avoided a lot of the reviews. I know the first time it was written about in Sports Illustrated it was great. The guy who writes by the name of Bethlehem Shoals, who writes for the Free Darko website, wrote a review for the Wall Street Journal that I thought missed the point. The guy who wrote it for the (New York) Times, Henry Abbott, is a huge Lebron fan and an ESPN employee. A lot of people – Parade magazine and Slate – got the book. It’s about an obsessed guy. Lebron is a real guy and he is a real guy in the book and I reported it to the best of my abilities and he is a vehicle in a lot of ways.

JB: What don’t’ people get about Cleveland?

Cleveland

SR: It’s unique among American cities. While it had a lot in common with its Rust Belt brothers Pittsburgh, Buffalo and especially Detroit, I don’t think there is a city that literally became a punch line and remained a punch line for decades like Cleveland. Everything that followed in the wake of its metamorphosis into a punch line has tended to reinforce the punch line. But that’s not what they don’t get. What they don’t get is that Cleveland not only became a symbol of urban decay and water pollution and to some degree air pollution and Rust Belt decay, but that the sports teams became reinforcing symbols of ineptitude and an ineptitude of a particularly laughable kind. You’ve got the mayor whose wife didn’t go to a White House event because it was her bowling night. Dennis Kucinich, who was a very positive national figure at first, became kind of a laughing stock. You have a town that has some real pride and some real reasons to be proud eventually noticing everyone – Johnny Carson on down -laughing at it all the time. You have a very angry, sullen city.

JB: Do you really hate Lebron?

SR: Yeah.

JB: Really? You’re a loving guy.

SR: Those aren’t mutually exclusive. There’s a thin line. The passion that’s there means that the love and the hate don’t contradict each other. Were I indifferent to Lebron that would really be the contradiction. Do I hate Lebron is the most global way to ask it. And yeah, I try and say yes or else you get into this, “well I loathe him. I despise him.” So then people go, “Do you really wish a career-ending injury upon him?” There have been those moments and I have written such. I’m not abandoning those. I’m owning those. I often have said – because people come back at me when they don’t like me or haven’t read the book or hate the book – they go, “You’re a piece of shit. That’s so wrong.” And, I honestly feel if I had superpowers and I could inflict that injury on him, then you can call me a monster. But I don’t. This is as impotent as impotent could be. I recognize that and so should they. I’m not consumed with the wish that he destroy one or both knees. If you call yourself a sports fan and tell me you’re a passionate sports fan and have never quietly wished for an injury, I’m not sure I agree you’re a passionate sports fan. In the U.S. and around the world it’s not so uncommon to cheer even when a home team player gets hurt if they’re sick of that player. I don’t think I’m such an outlier in this regard.

JB: You came to journalism through the unorthodox route of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

SR: When I was at Iowa there were a lot of people who had only been to school and I had done a lot of other things and I was really loaded everyday. It wasn’t like I was a binge drinker. I was fucked up everyday, all the time, 365 days a year. But I was also a guy who had read more than they had. I remember when William Kennedy visited one of the literature classes and he talked about rewriting Ironweed seven or eight times, rewriting the whole thing as it got rejected by publisher after publisher. I don’t know what Kennedy’s lifestyles issues were, but he was very somber, very, very, serious and humble. This example made sure I couldn’t take my writing that seriously. I mean seriously in a way that I would consider myself an artist and that I would be inspired and that what I would create was beauty. I’m not built that way anyway. What they exemplified to me was that you work really hard on trying to perfect your craft and if art should happen in any given sentence or paragraph or section that is for someone else to decide. You have to do the best you can and move the fuck on.

JB: Well, you said you’re not an artist. What are you?

SR: A writer. I like to come to terms with almost everything with words. I’m a great lover. A somewhat loyal friend. It’s up to my son to say what kind of father I am. I don’t know what my wife would say about what kind of husband I am. But pretty much I’m a guy who likes to write and I like to try and figure out how to entertain and delight myself and anyone who is reading. I don’t really have a good answer to that question. I’m a dork who can write.

George Plimpton with the Boston Celtics and Bill Russell.

It’s official Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton will make its world premiere at AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival in Washington, D.C. The premiere showing is on June 21 at 8:30 p.m. The film will also be shown on June 23 at 12 p.m. Tickets go on sale on Friday, June 1.

Silverdocs is the most talked about documentary festival in the United States, called “Non-Fiction Nirvana” by Variety, the “Pre-eminent documentary Festival in the US” by Screen International and the “premiere showcase for documentary film” by Hollywood Reporter.

Silverdocs encompasses a seven-day international film festival and five-day concurrent conference that promotes documentary film as a leading art form, supports the work of independent filmmakers and fosters an atmosphere for public dialogue and civic engagement around the issues and ideas explored in the films.

For more information on Silverdocs check the festival’s website.

A Hawaiian sunset

By Cary Chow

Last April I returned to TV hosting for the first time since “Fresh TV” – for those who don’t know – it’s only the greatest travel-entertainment-reality-cable access show of all time. I was a co-host for a TV pilot called “Immersed,” which was a cross of “Dhani Tackles the Globe” and “Pros vs. Joes.” Essentially three co-hosts serve as adventurers and fully immerse themselves in the life of an action sports athlete for a week. The show was created by Joyce Entertainment, which is the executive producer of  “Plimpton!” – a documentary that follows the incredible life of writer George Plimpton. He’s the psychiatrist that Good Will Hunting calls “gay.” He’s also a man that others call a real life Forrest Gump; he even tackled Sirhan Sirhan after Sirhan shot RFK.

The “Immersed” pilot was filmed in Kona, Hawaii, where the hosts followed and trained with world champion Ironman Chris Lieto. We stayed at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, an exotic resort that included world class athletic facilities, including a top-50 golf course rated by Golf Magazine; tennis courts where Michael Chang played; and a Playboy Mansion-esque grotto serving as some sort of outrageously luxurious spa treatment.

This shoot was an exercise in awesomeness and I will most likely come off sounding like a real douche if you continue on. So call me a douche! I wrote a story about my experience and pitched it to Traithlete Magazine, ESPN.com, and Grantland, but the douche factor was too overwhelming. That’s why it’s appearing here on the blog. It’s a long-form piece that clocks in at a Simmons-esque 4,000 words, so I’ll be impressed if anyone actually finishes – a cookie to anyone who does! My preamble is complete.

Now Presenting….

IRON DEFICIENCY

“Just throw up.”

That was the advice the sleek man with the shaved head gleefully gave me as I hunched over my knees and contemplated what a terrible place Hawaii can be. “I… can’t,” I mustered, seemingly minutes between words.

“You’ll feel better. Just do it. Come on.”

The man continued, grinning from ear-to-ear like the Cheshire Cat; devious blue eyes hidden by a pair of customized Oakley Jawbones. The man could hardly contain himself. We’ve barely run two miles, and my legs had the consistency of sashimi while my heart pumped like Jason Statham’s in “Crank.”

This is training with three-time Ironman champion Chris Lieto.

THE PLIMPTON EFFECT

A month earlier, I received a call to train with Ironman Champion Chris Lieto for several days near his home in Kona, Hawaii. I would be one of four hosts for a TV show pilot. Essentially, I will immerse myself into the life of one of America’s best triathletes; follow his routine, observe what makes him tick and discover the demands of the sport. It would be a new age George Plimptonian maneuver.

The talent of “Immersed”

Lieto is at the top of his sport. In addition to three Ironman wins, the 39-year-old has 16 top-level triathlon victories, a U.S. Ironman championship, and several top-10 finishes at the World Championships in Hawaii. He very likely would’ve taken last year’s title if not for being hampered by a stomach illness. Despite being under the weather, he still finished 10^th. He’s a former college water polo player who got into the sport at 25, an age when most Ironmen begin their peak. A former fashion model, Lieto is now the model image of a triathlete.

Here’s the breakdown of my assignment: fly to the Big Island to meet with Lieto at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, follow him around and try to keep up with him as best as possible as he bikes, runs, and swims around the resort in preparation for the Ironman World Championships. Seems innocent enough – except for the fact that I’m atrocious at all endurance sports.

I’m 30, stand 5’9, and weigh a relatively fit 165 pounds. I fancy myself as athletic, yet frequent visits to the chiropractor would argue otherwise. My swimming technique involves improper breathing, useless strokes, and voluminous imbibing of liquid. The last time I ran more than a mile was as a high school freshman. My bicycle is a women’s cruiser with a basket. I wish I made that up. Not even on Nintendo am I on the cusp of swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles – the distances in the Ironman World Championship. The closest I’ve been to an Ironman is Red Box; yet here I was, ready to go toe-to-toe with the best in the sport? Walter Mondale had a better shot of beating Reagan. Right?

ALOHA: AS IN GOODBYE

View from hotel

As I set foot in the airy, ceiling-less Kona Airport, I’m taken to the lovely Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows; an upscale resort that caters specifically to athletes, and even more specifically – triathletes. It rests directly on two beaches so open water swimming is less than a stone’s throw away. The property features a multi-lane 25-meter lap pool with an instructor who has finished multiple Ironmans. The tennis court that looked straight from Flushing Meadows is complemented by two world class golf courses that “Golf Magazine” listed among North America’s best. That’s not even mentioning the full-scale outdoor spa center complete with what appears to be the grotto from the Playboy Mansion. The resort’s media relations director, Bree Dalwitz, says in her inviting Australian accent, that a soothing water massage is done in this cavernous inlet. I bet.

Despite these and numerous other amenities, it’s arguably the roads that are perhaps best suited for triathlon training. Long paved roads weave throughout the entire property like spilled spaghetti. The non-linear terrain helps train for uphill battles and downhill breakaways. Smoldering lava rocks assist heat acclimation. And of course, access to Kona’s main highway is a quick ride or run away. Some might say it’s perfect for cycling and running. I say it’s daunting.

LOOKING THE PART

My first introduction to Ironman training involves putting on a pair of Speedo-esque trunks known as “jammers.” They’re the exceptionally tight racing trunks that allow for minimal interference in the water – and minimal interpretation for the imagination. For some reason, my jammers are white in the rear and once wet — become somewhat transparent. Why on earth would you make a Speedo see-thru? Don’t get me wrong, I can think of reasons, but it doesn’t seem to help with performance. Perhaps the fact I’m dwelling on my new swim trunks and not focusing on swimming will affect my future performance? Nah.

Later Donatello ate pizza and fought Shredder

In the water, the Speedos do make a difference. While board shorts weigh you down, these newfangled crotch-huggers allow freedom of movement and glide in water. If Walter Iooss Jr. took one of his classic close-up action photos, you’d probably be able to see the liquid roll off the body like oil and water.

Next it’s time to get fitted for a road bike at Cycle Station, a performance bike shop run by Oliver and Julia Kiel. Oliver has short brown hair and a thick German accent that makes him sound like Dirk Nowitzki. He’s a courteous guy, but when he talks to you, you get the sense that he’s got something better to do. Like train. Oliver is probably 95% more fit than any of his customers and seems to have the motor of a Volkswagen. He’s completed the Ultraman, which involves swimming 6.2-miles, cycling 261.4-miles, and running 52.4-miles and takes three days.  That’s 320 miles combined, roughly the distance from Washington DC to Ontario. Dude be fit.

Oliver instructs me to change into my cycling bib. These look less like bike shorts and more like Borat’s fluorescent green mankini. Below the waist, the overall-style shorts provide significant butt padding; above, it prepares you to Greco-Roman wrestle Alexander Karelin. Its snug design minimizes wind resistance and makes you look as uncool as possible.

So close to stealing this

 

Oliver fits me for a black-and-red Trek Madone 3 Series, an ultra light carbon-framed road bike with a value of about $2,100. For some reason, the bike conjured images of a black widow spider. As I first sit on this Ferrari of road bikes, I could practically hear it sighing in disappointment. The seat, or saddle, feels made of marble. It’s hard on the bum and my Rulon Gardner outfit immediately provides a solid return on the investment. The road bike puts you high in the air as you hunch over like Quasimodo to reach the handles. I doubt this posture is pediatrician recommended, but it apparently helps you go fast.

I’m wearing cycling shoes that require you to click onto the pedals. Attaching the shoe to pedal helps maximize speed and saves energy. Cyclists get power on the up and downstrokes. When the foot rises, so does the pedal, saving valuable joules when you’re working on mile 100 – or for me – 3. The trick, however, is getting in-and-out of these snapping contraptions without toppling over. It requires a quick thrust of the foot away from the bike – a maneuver I never mastered, but didn’t have to because I planned on using normal pedals when riding with Lieto.

My reasoning to bypass cycling cleats, other than to avoid broken wrists, which would’ve occurred while bracing for inevitable falls, was to help with my transition speed between the swim and cycling portions of the Ironman. While swimming, your bike, shoes, socks, water, and whatever else you need await you on a nice towel. When you emerge from the water, you run through the sand, wash your feet, put on your shoes, and cycle off as fast as possible.

During my transition practice, I could sense valuable seconds wasting away as I struggled to put my socks around my moist feet. So ultimately, I ditched my socks and put on my pre-tied running shoes. It helped with my transition speed. It also helped Dr. Scholl’s stock as I would undoubtedly have to buy some sort of foot odor spray after cycling.

MEETING CHRIS

As transition practice wrapped around 8 in the morning, Chris Lieto, his wife Karis, and their adorable 3-year-old daughter arrived at the Mauna Lani. They came bearing a large stroller filled to the brim with water and supplies. Lieto, draped in casual K-Swiss gear, isn’t a physically imposing force like say LeBron James or Peyton Manning, but the slightest glance and you can tell he’s an athlete. He’s as aerodynamic as a human can get. If LeBron James is a Lamborghini, Chris Lieto is a Ducati. He stands at 6-feet and is 160 pounds of lean, cut muscle. His body fat is in the negatives. His head is shaved to maximize performance. So are his legs and arms. Speed is in the subtleties. To win an Ironman, it not only takes extreme fitness, but also anatomical assistance. His fingernails seem trimmed to the maximum distance, but Lieto says some competitors remove them completely.

The workout itinerary includes a morning bike ride of 4.2-miles, a quick meal, followed by a 4.2-mile run. This is just a small excerpt from Lieto’s normal training, but for videography and production purposes – this is what we’ll do together. I am certainly cognizant that those numbers don’t sound daunting, but because they are so modest, it will undoubtedly make my struggles all the more humiliating. Make no mistake about it – I’m worried. I’m not quite George Clooney before his last stand against demon vampires in “From Dusk ‘til Dawn,” but I am concerned.

SADDLING UP

A production crew crams into a white Dodge minivan, leaving the trunk open to shoot unobscured video. Lieto hops on the saddle to his Trek bite and immediately flies along the roadside lava rock. His effortless pedaling resembles pistons firing off in an engine. Biking is Lieto’s strongest triathlon event. He’s widely considered the strongest cyclist in the field. In fact, Lance Armstrong even called him out to race.

“I found out about it on Twitter,” said Lieto of the seven-time Tour de France winner’s challenge. Armstrong tweeted he wanted to race Lieto as they trained separately in Kona early 2010. In what became known as the “Twitter Time Trial,” Armstrong beat Lieto by a mere 15 seconds in a 14-mile sprint.

Lieto is like 27 miles behind me. Riiight….

 

In the beginning of my ride with the guy who barely lost to Captain Livestrong, everything felt great. The adjustment to the harsh saddle and the crouching tiger posture was easy. Concern of falling over on the narrow road bike subsided since there were no harsh acute turns on our route. That being said, I could still feel the strain on my legs as I cygled through even the slightest elevation change. My thighs burned. I tried to compensate by changing gears, but I could never remember which direction were the higher gears (for downhill riding), and which were the lower (for uphill). I cluelessly switched gears like a monkey handed a remote control, and this constantly resulted in excess joule exertion. As Lieto rode further ahead of me, I regretted forgoing the clip-in cycling shoes. The momentum of being attached to the pedal not only saves energy but propels you further faster, and I needed any advantage I could.

 

As we briefly ride side-by-side, Lieto tells me about the places he’s traveled to because of the sport. India, Africa, Mexico – he’s certainly seen his share of Sky Mall covers. But his trip to Mexico was perhaps the most poignant. That’s when he realized the depths of poverty firsthand, and juxtaposed that image with the all-inclusive resort he was staying at. He remembers clearly the images of impoverished young children sitting in trees and families living in cardboard boxes. It was an area of desperation and need.

That led him to begin “More Than Sport,” a non-profit organization devoted to helping children and communities around the world. According to its website, the organization has raised more than $100-thousand in supplies, education, health care and other needs in the last year. A man of deep faith, Lieto has enlisted other athletes to join More Than Sport’s cause of compassion.

Lieto pulls well ahead as we race back to the resort and I notice his legs. They are so sinewy his veins protrude like the sides of a 4^th grader’s plaster of Paris volcano. In fact, they are so healthy they actually look unhealthy – almost fragile. His calves are rocks and his thighs are straight equine. Even when he coasts, Lieto looks to win.

After the ride, my legs are a bit jelly-like, but I’m satisfied with my performance. I know Lieto was operating on cruise control while I was going all out, but the fact I was able to remotely keep up was pleasing. My goals aren’t that lofty. Lieto heads off to grab another bite to eat, and the television hosts take turns cycling for the cameras. Altogether, we bike around 8.4 miles. About 15 minutes after the crew finishes individual cycling shots, it’s time to start running.

IT DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF “SLOW”

The running route is the same as the cycling. I know for a fact I will not be able to keep up for long. The fact my legs feel like udon is not an excuse, but it is a convenient to note. Once again, we’ll chase the camera crew in a minivan. Apprarently “worry” is painted on my face, because Lieto leans to me and says, “We’ll go real slow.”

Thanks. But it won’t matter.

Lieto starts off at a super slow pace. His K-Swiss sneaks seem like they’re shuffling along the road. He’s a notch above speed-walking at this point.

I begin to fall behind from the pack

 

Not me. His walk is my jog. Within a quarter mile, I’ve already significantly dropped off his pace. I’m sweating like Kris Humphries before proposing to Kim Kardashian and am barely registering in his rear view. By the ¾-mile mark, he’s a blip in the distance. I estimate my pace to be around an 8-minute mile. Considering I never run to just run, I have no real basis of comparison. If I were on a treadmill, it would feel like I’m going about level 5.5.

My heart is pumping hard. I’m trying to breath with discipline. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Some experts say you want to breathe with a 3-to-2 ratio. Meaning, you inhale on the left, right, left foot; then exhale on the right and left steps. This supposedly helps you get more oxygen to the muscles, while clearing the body of carbon dioxide. Regardless, the method is lost on me as I breathe like a Labrador in the Sahara. The front of my gray shirt sports a massive parabola of sweat that reaches below my navel.

By the time I reach the 1.75-mile point, I’m pretty sure Lieto has run to California. The Ironman, camera crew, co-hosts – all are long gone. I’m by myself “running” alongside the lava rocks. I take solace in the fact I don’t have a side ache, my legs haven’t cramped up, and I’m still going.

Eventually, the van returns and the producers tell me to stop. I didn’t reach my 2.1-mile finish point and wanted to keep going, but the film crew wants to capture different shots of each host running individually. The momentary break helps rejuvenate, but rejuvenation doesn’t mean reincarnation. I still can’t run fast or long and I’m quickly struggling again. I stop. Breathe heavily. Hunch over.

Lieto sees this from afar and decides I need some extra motivation. He runs to me, in high spirits, puts his hand over me, concerned for my well-being. Then smiles. Wide.

“Just throw up.”

I can’t do it. Even though I seemed to have reached the end of my running point for the day, I don’t have anything in the esophageal go-position. The thought of vomiting certainly doesn’t seem like it will make me feel better, especially since it would have to be self-induced – which Lieto insists I do. He’s playing with me now. When I tell him I have no intention of doing that, Lieto smiles, “It’ll be good for the camera.”

Seeing as how his goading will not work, Lieto runs off. Leaving me all by myself again. This time to walk.

This would’ve been a preferred mode of transportation

 

The crew finishes getting all the shots they need and offer rides back to the resort. Lieto says he knows a short cut and starts running back. All the hosts follow, including myself, albeit reluctantly.

Soon enough they all run out of my vantage point again. But I can’t help but smile. That might be hyperbole because I’m too exhausted to lift the sides of my mouth – but I’m content. Sure I’m legions behind everyone else. If this were the 1994 Oscar race between “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Pulp Fiction” – I would be “Cabin Boy.” Yet I’m still jogging at this point. In my mind, that’s all that matters.

STRAIGHT TALK

It’s about 6:30pm by the time we return to the Mauna Lani. We decide to eat dinner at the Ocean Grill, the resorts’ casual beachfront restaurant. It’s a low-key evening with Lieto – no cameras, just company.

Lieto orders an array of appetizers including tuna tartare. He’s quite the diet guru, which isn’t a surprise considering he’s constantly eating to compensate for his tremendous calorie burning. In fact, Lieto founded Base Performance, a nutritional supplement company for endurance athletes. Lieto says nutrition is vital to the success of a triathlete. A strong nutritional base helps the body train, recover, and adapt.  He doesn’t cheat his body.

As I order a tantalizing, and masculine, tropical cocktail complete with pineapple chunk, cherry, but sans umbrella, he won’t even slip with a Michelob Ultra. Those commercials are full of shit.

As his fresh mahi mahi tacos arrive, Lieto has let a bit of his guard down, talking about growing up in Jersey and moving to California. At the beginning of the production, Lieto, like most professional athletes or entertainers, is careful as to what he admits and reveals. But in this dimly lit, relaxed setting with waves crashing behind us, he lets in. He tells us he’s a very religious man, which contributed to starting More Than Sport. He opens up about the difficulty of balancing training with family. He says the long hours and travel take its toll on the family; and he’s actually regretted not being more available in the past. But recently, he’s shifted his priorities and reaffirmed family as the most important part of his life. It’s all a balance.

Mauna Lani’s backyard

He also admits he’s frustrated with television coverage of the sport, especially the main event and how the show has been condensed, glossed over, and dramatically packaged for the most casual viewer. Lieto distinctly resents Ironman commentator Al Trautwig’s on-air remark that Lieto would have to “wait ‘til next year” – a perceived affront to a man who’s dedicated his life to achieving a goal.

Lieto says his only goal left in the sport is to win the Kona World Championship. Realistically, he only foresees a few more years in the sport. While he’s on top of his game now, Lieto knows everything can change as quickly as his time trials.

OPEN WATER

At 6 a.m., Lieto is ready for an open water swim from Nanuku Inlet, thru Makaiwa Bay, to Beach Club Beach, roughly a distance of around 1600 feet. The third host of this production, Wes Dening, will swim alongside Lieto as best as he can. Dening is an outgoing Australian TV host and producer who used to swim competitively as a teenager, including against Aussie swimming superstar and Olympian Ian Thorpe, or the “Thorpedo”. Felsch, the other co-host, will kayak next to the swimmers as cameraman Brendan Love shoots video with a GoPro, one of those tiny mountable cameras that are used prevalently in sports videography. Lieto plans on swimming this distance to and fro several times; Dening, a round-trip. Me? I’m walking.

Lieto glides in the water like a greased up porpoise. It’s the sport he’s had to work hardest on to improve, and each effortless stroke proves how much that practice, time, and effort has paid off. There’s hardly any splash with each kick and stroke; and each controlled breathe is an exercise in discipline. Impressively, Dening is not far behind him and neither is winded by the time they reach the shore.

The swimming shoot requires each host to swim to and from a catamaran that’s anchored around 200 yards off shore. Being the poor swimmer that I am, this part of the triathlon gives me the most anxiety. Instead of my jammers, I’m wearing board shorts. I dive into the water, which is obligingly calm, and try to go for as long as I can. At what seems the 150-yard mark, I switch from freestyle to backstroke. 20 more yards and I’ve stopped swimming and start treading water. The crew continues to shoot from the kayak. In my head, I feel I can make it to the boat, but there would be zero chance I can swim back to shore. I make the call. The towel is thrown.

I turn around and head back in. After swimming for what might be around 30-yards or so, I’m completely gassed. I’m breathing heavily but no breath is satisfying enough. I grab the back of the kayak as the crew rows me back in. I ride to around 20 yards from shore then laboriously swim the remaining distance. Maybe 20 feet away from the beach, I can stand. The ground is rigid and full of uneven rocks, but to me it feels like heaven. I can’t wait to stand and walk. Once I make it to the beach, I can’t wait to lie and sleep.

Maybe 15 minutes later we shoot some more swimming scenes. It’s brief and not nearly as painful. After the cameras wrap, Lieto and Wes swim back to the resort, while Lindsey and I kayak. The training is over. The Ironman experience is complete.

BORN VS. BRED

Later that day we would shoot some interviews reliving our experience – or for me – the charade. Going into the week, I had this perception towards the Ironman – it’s a sport where athletes are bred, not born. To succeed in basketball, football, etc., there’s a genetic makeup involved. An average Joe, with all the practice in the world, cannot become an NBA superstar. There are physical limitations: height, vertical, speed. However, an Ironman consists of basic exercises: swimming, cycling and running. If you have the mental and physical discipline, finishing an Ironman can be achieved through hours of devotion (not finishing first, but finishing).

Realizing one sucks at all sports is disheartening

Training with an Ironman, I feel that statement is only half-true. Surely it can be accomplished, but it takes a certain personality and mental make-up – and not everyone has it. Chris Lieto does. It’s less personal drive than instinct. When a friend ran over Lieto’s foot with a car and threatened his ability to walk – let alone do a triathlon – Lieto pushed himself through the pain and eventually became an Ironman champion. It was something he knew he had to do. Lieto has molded his mind in such a way that his threshold for pain is like few others. Heck, it’s nothing short of David Blaine if you ask me. The mental mastery it takes to be a top-flight Ironman competitor is just as impressive and rare as Andy Roddick’s 155-mph serve or a Wayne Rooney bicycle kick.

Over the course of the week, Lieto told me several times, “Anyone can do a triathlon. It’s just a matter of how long it takes to finish.” Looking back, I question if that’s truly accurate. What I do know, is that it sure helps with a kayak.

Directors take questions after the screening.

Thank you to everyone who turned out for our sneak preview screening at IFFBoston!

We had a great crowd at the Brattle and were thrilled with the reception the film received.

After the movie, we took the audience with us to the Russell House Tavern for Dewar’s and discussion.   To everyone who showed up, thank you so much for your support.

For everyone else, we look forward to sharing the movie with you soon!

Plimpton! on the big screen.

The following review came from Meet In the Lobby as part of the website’s coverage of the Independent Film Festival of Boston.

Known for his fearless “participatory journalism,” the late George Plimpton was equal parts Walter Mitty, Studs Terkel and Evel Knievel. For this admiring biography, directors Luke Poling and Tom Bean follow Plimpton from his prep-school days as a failed athlete to his life as toast of the town, hosting Manhattan parties that attracted the likes of Philip Roth, Gay Talese and plenty of other big brains. Poling and Bean celebrate that old-school New York style with the easy gait of Plimpton himself, telling their story with photographs, film footage and TV memories, along with touching talking-head interviews with Plimpton’s family, colleagues and, of course, other admirers. Great fun.

Plimpton with the Lions

Directed by Tom Bean and Luke Poling, Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself is a documentary about the writer, editor, amateur sportsman,and friend to many, George Plimpton.

The film uses Plimpton’s own voice, along with stories from friends, family, and contemporaries to paint a colorful picture of richly filled life. Read more.