“Where’s this plane headed?” he asked the flight attendant.
“Mexico City,” she replied.
A week later, Mayer, then 22, was back home in Denver, his father having paid for the return flight. A waiter at the time for an upscale restaurant, Mayer asked for his old job back.
“If I slip again,” Mayer told his boss, “fire me on the spot.”
Mayer was rehired. Three months later, having cascaded back down into his destructive lifestyle, Mayer sat on the floor of his apartment after partying, the heater blasting, knees pulled to his chest, sweating profusely and shaking uncontrollably.
“That night,” Mayer said, “I felt I wasn’t going to make it to the next morning.”
Feeling he needed military structure to turn his life around, Mayer called a Navy recruiter the next morning. He enlisted weeks later, headed to boot camp, stayed in the Navy for nearly nine years, and the strict, disciplined lifestyle helped set him straight.
He’s 44 years old now, living outside Denver, married, the father of two children ages four and five, and the owner of a pawn shop. At 6 feet 5 inches, 218 pounds, he’s also in the best shape of his adult life after winning a lottery spot for the Oct. 9 Ford Ironman World Championship.
For Mayer, crossing that Kona finish line won’t just cap a 14-, 15- or maybe 16-hour day. It will purge him of ghosts that have rattled about his brain for more than two decades.
“I’m really ashamed about my past,” Mayer said. “This is going to put an end to that previous life. This will be the pinnacle, the final step.”
One of Mayer’s most vivid boot camp memories: running. And running some more. And running until he thought he’d fall face-first on the pavement. It was sometime in boot camp when Mayer formulated a goal. The young man who only recently had been spiraling out of control, punishing his body, would run a marathon.
“From breaking the body to bringing it to its most ultimate, optimum place,” Mayer said.
Four years later, and stationed in Bangor, Wash., Mayer sampled the swim-bike-run. Meanwhile, the marathon dream was still there, unconquered. Only now, in his mid-20s, he adjusted the goal. He still wanted to run 26.2 miles someday, but now it had to be in an Ironman.
Mayer has completed two Ironman 70.3-distance races and six road half marathons. But never an Ironman. Kona will be his first. He has never run a traditional marathon. The 26.2-mile carrot is still hanging there, waiting to be crossed off life’s to-do list.
After a while, Mayer modified the marathon ambition some more. It couldn’t just come at an Ironman. It had to come at THE Ironman, on the Big Island, where you can see the heat vaporizing off the pavement, where the legs turn to mush after cycling 112 miles into the bleak lava fields, up to Hawi and into the trade winds.
By his estimation, Mayer entered the lottery 10 times before his name was drawn last April. He used to train vigorously for weeks before the lottery announcement, wanting to prep his body for the coming arduous task. But after so many lottery letdowns, he stopped the advance work.
Then his name was selected. From August of 2009 until April 15 of this year, Mayer said the only exercise he had done was a 7 kilometer road race. He weighed 250 pounds last April, hardly obese at 6’ 5”, but not Ironman fit.
He hired a coach and his first week of training included three twice-a-day sessions, plus a 50-minute run one day and a two-hour bike ride another day, all at an easy pace. The first-week schedule may sound daunting for someone who basically hadn’t exercised for eight months, but Mayer had some factors in his favor.
He’s typically on his feet nine hours a day, six days a week at work. His diet’s healthy, And he’s no training neophyte. From 1999 through 2004, Mayer raced weekly during the summer when living in outside Denver, everything from 5Ks to half marathons and sprint tris to Olympics distances.
So that his Kona quest would have as little impact on the family as possible, Mayer has regularly hit the alarm button at 4:30 a.m. for morning workouts. After the kids retire to bed, it’s not unusual for him to head to the basement, hop on his bike trainer and log a two-hour workout.
“I’ve been just very impressed with his discipline,” said Michelle Ford, Mayer’s coach. “From the moment I met him he was gung-ho. He wanted nothing more than to train It’s a huge balancing act (including work and family). And his family is very, very supportive.”
Mayer’s wife, Sandy, is his No. 1 fan. So that Mayer can get away in the middle of the day for some workouts, Sandy has held down the fort at the pawn shop. There have been side benefits for Sandy.
“He looks amazing. He looks extremely fit. He looks phenomenal,” she said. “He’s hot.”
Of her husband’s dedication, she said, “He’s really taxing himself, trying to do the workouts but not affecting us. I don’t know how he’s managed it this far. He never complains. It’s pretty amazing, pretty impressive is what it is. I don’t understand how he keeps going.”
Here’s how he keeps going. He thinks back 20 years, remembers his destructive past, remembers how it felt to be curled up in the fetal position, shivering, wondering if he’d see the next day. And he remembers that 26.2-mile goal.
Eighteen days before Kona, Mayer was asked what was on his mind as race day approached. He paused, his voice choked up and for a couple seconds you could hear crying on the other end of the phone.
“I’ve just wanted this for so long,” Mayer finally said. “That marathon’s been sitting out there, dangling for too many years.”
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