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Photographs: Jonathan Nixon at the 17 mile exchange with Kelli Binzer. Doug Beeman waits to take over..
Duane Newton and his blogging friends

Jonathan Nixon: Ironman South Africa 2008 10:41:25 165th overall and 18th in his age group.

For those of you who don't know Jonathan's story, he came to the United States from South Africa over 10 years ago. He is husband, father of two and an owner of a successful business. This is Ironman number two and unless he changes his mind... "my last one".
In 2006 Jonathan was 7 weeks out from Ironman Coeur d'dlene when he agreed to help pace MHM Kelli Binzer on her quest to qualify for Boston. Jonathan had a long run that day and along with Doug Beeman agreed to help me help Kelli. The above photo shows him at mile 17 handing Kelli off to Doug. I was the transport person that day. Soon after the exchange Jonathan looked and me and said, "I have a stress fracture in my foot, I've had one before and I felt it come back around mile 12". Tests the following week confirmed his suspicion. Jonathan went on to finish IMCDA that year in a time of 11:29.41. After the race he told me he was disappointed in his time. I couldn't convince him that for a first time race, his injury and temperature in the high 90's this was a great time.
No one was more surprised than I when he contacted me in the middle of last summer and told me he was thinking of signing up Ironman South Africa. Today he set a Personal Record by over 45 minutes with a 10:41 finish. Reports from Port Elizabeth are that Jonathan was ecstatic with his time. When I last heard from him he was enjoying his first beer in 4 months.
If you want to know the secret to his success in lies directly in his work ethic. In a few words he was consistent, dedicated and never complained, questioned or wavered.. he just followed his plan and remained positive.

Duane Newton aka Big D:

For those of you who are new to the blogging community you need to read the story of Duane Newton. I first met Duane at triathlon 101 conference last year. At the time he was over 400 pounds and told me he wanted to do an Ironman some day. Duane went on to finish 5 triathlons last year. Duane is heavily involved in the blogging community and has quite the following on his web page Couch Potato to Ironman http://couchpotato-to-ironman.blogspot.com/. Over the past few months Duane has experienced some troubles with his bike and has resorted to riding the spin bike at the club. His road bike was out of commission and he was struggling with what to do to get back outdoors.
This weekend Duane went to watch friends compete at Ironman Arizona. As is typical when Ironman atheltes get together a dinner was held Friday evening. What Duane didn't know was that his blogging friends had secretly collected funds and purchased a new bike for him. They disguised the reveal by staging a fake raffle in which the winning ticket was picked by Duane. When he read the ticket it stated "To Duane, from your friends in the blogging community". The picture above is of Duane with his new wheels and more importantly, some very special people.