was the original bike-to-run transition site The idea for the original Ironman Triathlon arose during the awards ceremony for the 1977 Oʻahu Perimeter Relay. Among the participants were representatives of both the Mid-Pacific Road Runners and the Waikiki Swim Club, whose members had long been debating which athletes were more fit, runners or swimmers. On this occasion,
U.S. Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that a recent article in
Sports Illustrated magazine had declared that Belgian cyclist
Eddy Merckx had the highest recorded "
oxygen uptake" of any athlete ever measured, so perhaps cyclists were more fit than anyone. Collins and his wife Judy Collins had taken part in the triathlons staged in 1974 and 1975 by the San Diego Track Club in and around
Mission Bay, California, as well as the 1975 Optimist Sports Fiesta Triathlon in
Coronado, California. A number of the other military athletes in attendance were also familiar with the San Diego races, so they understood the concept when Collins suggested that the debate should be settled through a race combining the three existing long-distance competitions already on the island: the
Waikiki Roughwater Swim (), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (; originally a two-day event) and the
Honolulu Marathon (). Until that time, no one present had ever done the bike race. Collins figured by shaving off the course and riding counter-clockwise around the island, the bike leg could start at the finish of the Waikiki Rough Water and end at the
Aloha Tower, the traditional start of the Honolulu Marathon. Prior to racing, each athlete received three sheets of paper listing a few rules and a course description. Handwritten on the last page was this exhortation: "
Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life", now a registered trademark. With a nod to a local runner who was notorious for his demanding workouts, Collins said, "Whoever finishes first, we'll call
him the Iron Man." Each of the racers had their own support crew to supply water, food and encouragement during the event. Of the fifteen men to start off in the early morning on February 18, 1978, twelve completed the race.
Gordon Haller, a U.S. Navy Communications Specialist, was the first to earn the title Ironman by completing the course with a time of 11 hours, 46 minutes, 58 seconds. The runner-up John Dunbar, a
U.S. Navy SEAL, led after the second transition and had a chance to win but ran out of water on the marathon course; his support crew resorted to giving him beer instead. With no further marketing efforts, the race gathered as many as 50 athletes in 1979. The race, however, was postponed a day because of bad weather conditions. Only fifteen competitors started off the race Sunday morning. San Diego's
Tom Warren won in 11 hours, 15 minutes, 56 seconds. finished her race in 12 hours 55 minutes and 38 seconds, only 1 hour 39 minutes and 42 seconds slower than the winning time for the men's race. Collins planned on changing the race into a relay event to draw more participants, but ''Sports Illustrated's'' journalist Barry McDermott, in the area to cover a golf tournament, discovered the race and wrote a ten-page account of it. There have been 19 different ways to qualify for the Ironman. Some of the ways include being a Hawaii Resident who won an event drawing, attaining a win in your age group at a previous Ironman, or even having a "Human Interest Story." Such human interest stories include participants who are cancer survivors and war heroes injured in battle. on Alii Drive in
Kailua-Kona Hawaii
Valerie Silk and WTC Around 1979 Collins no longer wanted to direct the Ironman race and approached Nautilus Fitness Center owners Hank Grundman and Valerie Silk about taking over control of the race. Grundman previously had extended his club's facilities to many of the Ironman competitors. Following the couple's divorce in 1981 Silk received ownership of Ironman. That year she moved the competition to the less urbanized
Hawaii Island A number of non-WTC full distance triathlons have been held since the mid-1990s. The limited number of WTC-sanctioned events, and the limited number of entries available per race, have combined with a growth in the sport that has created demand for these non-trademarked events. Many of them share the , , format with the Ironman triathlon. Originally, many used the Ironman name. Due to aggressive trademark protection, most of these races no longer use the word "Ironman". ==Today==