Rich Archbold: Lightning, monsoon can’t stop Ironwoman Marcelle Epley and her friends

The monsoon’s torrential rainfall was truthful dense that Long Beach assemblage person Marcelle Epley could hardly unfastened her eyes portion riding her motorcycle successful the brutal Ironman contention successful Cozumel, Mexico.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

Thunder boomed and lightning touched down, lone 20 feet from her bike.

“It was the closest I’ve ever been to a bolt of lightning,” Epley, 43, president & CEO of the Long Beach Community Foundation, said later. “It was past that I started to pray.”

She prayed to her beloved Grandma Shirley Fields Levitz, who had passed distant conscionable 17 days earlier the contention past month.

“She was my guardian angel successful life, and I needed her much than ever.”

Grandma Shirley indispensable person heard her granddaughter’s prayer. Epley not lone finished the grueling 112-mile motorcycle information of the Ironman triathlon race, but she besides completed the 2.4-mile aquatics and 26.2-mile marathon of the punishing event, considered by galore to beryllium the astir hard and toughest one-day diversion trial successful the world.

For idiosyncratic who seldom travels extracurricular Long Beach these days due to the fact that of the COVID-19 pandemic, finishing a afloat Ironman contention 2,800 miles distant successful Cozumel, an land disconnected the Yucatan Peninsula, was an unbelievable achievement. She finished successful 14 hours — plentifulness of clip to spare earlier the 17-hour clip limit.

“I did thing I didn’t deliberation I could bash and it felt amazing,” she told me.

Being a ma of 2 boys, a CEO, a assemblage person and volunteer, wherefore did she instrumentality connected this daunting challenge? She said her beingness already was “a tangled web, a changeless conflict of who I volition anguish to accidental ‘no’ to.”

She had doubts astir finishing and adjacent wondered if she mightiness die. But, successful the last analysis, it was a humbling, once-in-a-life acquisition fewer get to accidental they’ve accomplished, and she couldn’t defy the opportunity.

She besides said it was thing she felt she had to bash for herself. “As a idiosyncratic who divides her clip betwixt truthful galore different things for others, this was thing peculiar conscionable for me,” she said. Epley is 1 of the astir tenacious radical I know. As she told me, erstwhile she sets her caput to something, “for amended oregon worse, I americium similar a canine with a bone.”

Epley knew that grooming for the Ironman contention would beryllium much strenuous than thing she had done before. She was utilized to getting up earlier her hubby and boys for runs successful the neighborhood. Five years ago, she started a moving nine she called the Bixby Knolls Dawn Joggers. She enlisted immoderate of these early-morning runners to assistance her successful her caller grooming program.

The 5:30 Club — AKA the FTC — is simply a seasoned moving radical Epley said is made up of Long Beach 40- and 50-somethings who worth family, smack speech and hard work

Members of the FTC invited her to their pre-dawn grooming sessions. Nine members of that nine finished the Ironman contention with Epley successful Cozumel.

To amended her swimming technique, she met play with aquatics coaches astatine the Fairfield YMCA successful North Long Beach.

She improved her cycling clip by spinning connected a stationary motorcycle successful her store and astatine the Weingart YMCA.

To thin to her knees worn down by playing shot erstwhile she was younger, she went to play weightlifting and monthly chiropractic and acupuncture sessions astatine Fitness Chiropractic successful downtown Long Beach. She besides mislaid 20 pounds.

She besides had to bid her caput for the contention arsenic good arsenic her body. “It’s good known by the toughest subject unit that the assemblage follows what the caput directs,” she said. “I didn’t privation to permission thing connected the array travel contention day.”

Race time yet arrived with 2,818 athletes, including Epley, jumping disconnected a dock into the Caribbean Sea and plunging into a colorful underwater food and coral-filled world.

“I estimation it was 50 oregon 60 feet to the oversea floor, but I could spot each detail, and I waved astatine hundreds of colorful fish, oversea urchins, octopus, sting rays, jellyfish and affable scuba divers connected the oversea floor. When I jumped in, determination was nary turning back,” Epley said.

She finished the 2.4-mile aquatics successful bully time, and it was connected to the motorcycle race.

“I threw connected my helmet, achromatic racing sleeves, socks and cycling shoes,” she said. “My nutrient and drinks were already secured successful a Velcro pouch connected my bike. I swung 1 limb implicit the motorcycle and I was off.”

Three laps astir the land to implicit 112 miles was the biggest escapade of her beingness truthful far, she said. The people coiled done a downtown country filled with tourists and large euphony … rural, tin-roofed stretches of roadworthy with children waving and shouting “Si se puede!” … lush, greenish tropical stretches … and picturesque seascapes bordered by crashing waves.

And past the rains and prayers came. The tempest yet passed but it near down flooded streets, swallowing the riders’ legs and tires successful two-to-three feet of water. “The past 30 miles of the motorcycle contention offered a wide blue, sun-filled sky, and it was past that it deed maine that I was going to marque it, some with my beingness and bully times. It was specified a relief.”

Next was the 26.2-mile marathon, but Epley said she felt similar she was connected “easy street” for the marathon due to the fact that “this was my jam.”

At the commencement of the marathon, she got a large boost erstwhile she saw 5:30 Club household members and her sister, Michelle Baker, who made the travel to Cozumel with her.

“I ran the marathon the full time, prevention for potty stops portion chocking down snacks and water,” she said. “Tourists and locals filled the streets, bars and restaurants with cheering, shouting and whistling.”

After finishing the race, she called her husband, Jeff, and her sons — Miles, 11, and Wesley, 7 — who were partying astatine a Long Beach ticker party. “Their enactment was overwhelming,” she said. “They and 20 positive friends were hooting and hollering and telling maine however darned arrogant of maine they were. I felt similar the luckiest idiosyncratic successful the satellite to person been fixed the accidental to enactment successful this contention and adjacent luckier to person been supported by household and friends.”

Of the 2,818 athletes who started the race, astir 550, oregon astir 20 percent, would not finish.

Finishing with Epley were her 5:30 Club buddies:

–Lorie Grimes-Ladesma, 51, an technologist astatine the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who said the scenery connected the motorcycle thrust was breathtaking erstwhile it wasn’t raining;

–Evan Hoover, 59, a founding subordinate of the 5:30 Club and is credited with coming up with the name.  The oldest of the radical by 8 months, Hoover is CPA for United Sports Brands;

–Arnoldo Casillas, 59, an lawyer and founding subordinate of the 5:30 Club;

–Pedro Jimenez, 45, manager of admissions and mediate schoolhouse dean astatine Peninsula Heritage School and erstwhile dean of students astatine Westerly School, who called the contention acquisition “a fabulous adventure”; and

–Four brothers: Viet Nguyen, 39, lawsuit manager astatine Nguyen Lawyers; Nam Nguyen, 36, an expert for Defense Contract Management Agency, Department of Defense; Minh Nguyen, 43, an attorney, and Tuan Nguyen, 43, adjunct main astatine Nelson Academy successful the Long Beach Unified School District successful Signal Hill.

All members of the 5:30 Club said they were motivated by household and friends to bash their best.

I thought Pedro Jimenez had a large reply erstwhile I asked him if helium ever thought helium mightiness not decorativeness the race: “There is ever that doubt, particularly since we are not allowed headphones oregon electronics during the race. Your caput starts playing tricks connected you. Yes, determination mightiness beryllium a infinitesimal erstwhile I consciousness I won’t finish, but past I deliberation to myself that determination are radical waiting for maine astatine the decorativeness enactment oregon pursuing backmost location cheering maine on, and they don’t attraction if I’m archetypal oregon past oregon don’t finish.”

He added: “They volition emotion maine for conscionable trying. And that keeps maine going retired determination for those agelong hours.”

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