male call: Tom Nichols
by Cayce Osborne
In 2008, we’ve all witnessed many compelling stories of athletic achievement. Foremost in the public eye was Michael Phelps’ remarkable Olympic journey, which captured the world’s attention in part because of his magical combination of passion, determination and extraordinary ability. No one can argue: Phelps’ body is tailor-made for swimming, but what about when the opposite is true? When a person discovers passion and determination within himself but must contend with a body that actively works against him, there is the potential for an entirely different sort of magic.
First steps: The road to weight loss
In 2002, Tom Nichols visited the doctor because of numbness in his feet and hands. He was soon diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and began a course of treatment that included weekly home injections. By early 2005, the situation wasn’t getting much better — symptom flare-ups that included severe numbness and vision problems were fairly common — prompting another visit to the doctor and a talk with a firm but kind nurse practitioner.
“She said that she wasn’t making any judgments [on my fitness level], but that studies show fitter people do better with the progression of the disease,” remembers Nichols. “She said to me, you can’t control the disease, but this is something you can control. Within two weeks, I started reading everything I could about nutrition.” He tossed out all his junk food and joined a gym.
About 15 pounds into his weight loss, people started noticing. Brad Stroud, a friend looking for a little weight loss motivation, challenged Nichols to a bet: whoever lost the most weight in a three-month period would win $200 from the other. With money on the line, neither man wanted to lose; they agreed that the loser would have the option to go double or nothing two more times.
Nichols won the first round, and Stroud agreed to the double or nothing challenge. Nichols won again, and even with $800 on the line, Stroud still plunged ahead. But Nichols was unstoppable, winning the money and losing over 80 pounds in the process. He was feeling better, his MS symptoms were lessening and other physical complaints had vanished. “Any benefit you can think of, I felt it.”
Energized by his success — and looking to switch up his workout routine — Nichols tried out a beginner’s running regimen given to him by a friend. With a bad knee and the inability “to even run around the block,” he wasn’t sure he could do it. But by the end of the 14-week program, he was able to run 25 minutes at a stretch.
Inspired to continue, Nichols signed up for his first race — the December 2005 Jingle Bell run here in Madison, a 10k put on by the Arthritis Foundation. Six inches of snow fell the night before the race, which was like “running through sand,” but he finished. “Immediately, I was like, what’s next,” he says. That began an almost furious addiction to running. Nichols joined a running club and ran every race he could, each time wondering, “What’s next?” After completing the Chicago Marathon, he made his foray into triathlon territory with a sprint, comprising three short events. This was an important goal for him, but still left him unsatisfied. He began to realize that a full triathlon might be possible.
Ironman was calling.
Becoming and Ironman
Nichols began by running three half-Ironman races. The first was in California, where he battled choppy ocean water, while the second was in Michigan, which resulted in torn knee cartilage that required surgery — but still, he finished the race. “It probably made my recovery longer, but there was no way I was going all the way out to Michigan and not finishing,” he states. At last year’s Ironman here in Madison, he worked as a volunteer while recovering from knee surgery, which only fueled his fire to compete. This July, he ran his third half-Ironman in Racine, where he improved on his Michigan time by 75 minutes.
Over the last year, Nichols has devoted his life to training. He ate up to 6,000 calories a day in fruits and vegetables, lean proteins like egg whites and fish, and healthy carbs like brown rice to fuel him through 25 hours a week of race prep. A typical weekday included an hour-long run at 4:15 a.m., followed by an hour and a half on the bike, a full day of work as a technical lead at American Family Insurance and then a few hours at his second job as a sales operator at Best Buy in the evening. Weekends meant up to eight hours of training a day and more time at Best Buy, a job he initially took to fund the purchase of a new triathlon bike.
Nichols is quick to point out that it doesn’t exactly thrill his doctor that he’s participating in something as rigorous as Ironman. It comes with a serious risk of overheating, which is very dangerous for MS patients, and his doctor would rather he stick to shorter races. But Nichols has a passion for continually overcoming new obstacles; he isn’t letting his diagnosis get in the way. “I just refuse to let it affect my lifestyle, so I just power through it. MS can put you in a wheelchair, it can make you blind. I’m neither of these things, so I get out there and do it.”
What MS does do is make Nichols a much more careful athlete. Because he battles numbness in his feet, he has to concentrate carefully on each step. “There are days when I can’t feel the bottom of my feet, and when I run on those days, it’s very mentally exhausting.” And often after a long bike ride, the road vibrations cause his hands to go numb, at times extending all the way to the shoulder, and he can’t feel his grip on the handles. “Sometimes you want to feel like ‘why is this happening to me,’” says Nichols, “but when there are so many people who have it so much worse, I can’t let myself think that way.”
It has all led up to this
Except for a bit of wind, Ironman day dawned sunny and pleasant, and thankfully for Nichols, not too hot, which would raise his risk of overheating. With a goal of finishing under 14 hours, the race began well when Nichols finished the 2.4-mile swim in an hour and 29 minutes. Next came the 112-mile bike ride. He finished in seven hours and nine minutes and transitioned into the 26.2-mile run, his most comfortable event. Battling pain and nausea, he had a bit of a rocky race, but seeing friends and family along the course gave him a second wind. When the Capitol building came into view, signaling the finish was near, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face even as other runners were grunting and grimacing around him. Nichols crossed the finish line at 13 hours and 48 minutes, still unable to stop grinning as he celebrated with his girlfriend, family and friends.
In a brief chat the day after the race, Nichols described himself as “very sore but in very high spirits.” With his Ironman ambitions fulfilled, the inevitable question becomes, of course, what’s next? “I’m going to take the next three weeks off and really, that’s the only ‘next’ I can think about,” he says.
His thirst for the next race temporarily quenched, Nichols has certainly earned his downtime. Perhaps he’ll have a beer, which he loves and has denied himself for the past year, or get back to shopping for a new bike. And speaking of shopping — I couldn’t resist asking Nichols what he spent the $800 on, his much deserved weight loss winnings.
“I never made Brad pay,” he says. “After all, I had already won a new life. How can you put a price on that?”
<Back to Take Note section page
