Part 3/9:
The idea of completing an Iron Man, an Olympic-distance triathlon, lingered in the back of the narrator's mind as an almost-insane goal. This changed in spring 2024 when a casual conversation with a cousin revealed that the Iron Man 70.3 was held in Michigan, where the family vacationed annually. Encouraged by this coincidence, the narrator, alongside his father and cousin Ross, signed up for the race, experiencing the thrill of preparation and commitment.