RickStrong! Madison's Cotton-Patch TriClub
Last Friday, Cotton Patch Triathlon Club members found themselves dining together in Madison at Town 220 rather than sharing a long-awaited pre-race meal in Florida. Before bread was broken, toastmaster Joe Cardwell announced the Top Ten Reasons Race Officials Cancelled the 22nd Annual Sandestin Triathlon. “Number three, PETA protest of last year’s race staggering jellyfish genocide. Number two, proposed Cotton Patch team unitards judged in violation of Florida obscenity laws. And the number one reason the 2008 Sandestin Triathlon was cancelled, “Massive protest over race competitor Rick Spence’s use of Lance Armstrong-method of performance-enhancing chemotherapy!”
Well, the real reason race officials called off the event had more to do with tropical storm Fay’s appearance rather than clingy, wicking Cotton Patch team uniforms, but Bostwick’s own Rick Spence’s performance-enhancing chemotherapy was no joke. And looking at the battle he’s faced since the Cotton Patch competed in the 2007 Sandestin race, Rick’s reality hasn’t been a laughing matter either.
Last October, just weeks after completing two triathlons, hiking down and up the Grand Canyon in a single day and celebrating his 40th birthday with friends, Rick experienced a seizure. Within 24-hours, he found himself in a hospital room surrounded by family and friends facing surgery to remove a brain tumor. Guess that would make anyone’s Top Ten Most Sobering Moments in Life. Having been in a hospital bed facing such a challenge, Rick told the group that night at Town 220,“My first thought was for my family. That they would be loved and cared for if something should happen during surgery. And secondly, I thought of this group and how much these friendships forged by years of training and completing together mean to me. I wondered, what if I come to other side of surgery incapacitated?”
Ten months later, an emotional Rick stood in our midst thanking God, his wife Karen and a mangy, rag-tag group of team mates for being there to witness his remarkable recovery. This July, the doctors at Duke informed him that the months of intensive treatments and drug therapy resulted in the best news possible; no trace of cancer. In celebration, Dan Newton printed race day club t-shirts with “Rickstrong on the front; Swimstrong, Bikestrong and Runstrong” on the back. Presenting the shirts to Rick that night, Dan reminded the group of Rick’s relentless training even through the harshest parts of his intense medical therapy.
The week before the race, Rick biked 25 miles through the Morgan County countryside averaging 23 miles an hour. This report came from my very red, sweaty husband who got a tad annoyed with Rick for pushing him so hard during the ride. Annoyance is generally the sentiment a wind-suckee feels toward buddy who inflicts major wind-suckage on mere mortals trying to keep alongside. An inflictor of wind-suckage. That’s when I knew — Rick was back. No, Rick was better.
For iron to be refined, it must experience the caldron’s fire. After the ore’s journey into the inferno, a pure metallic river emerges that once cast and cooled becomes an entity capable of bearing incredible weight. Rick, they don’t come any tougher or any softer (in the dearest sense) than you my friend. Forever our Ironman. Forever Rickstrong.
The board. The flurry around the board.
Greg Stewart awards Shirley her medal