The will of an Ironman
Eric Kreckel fixes his stare at the road ahead. He leans over his handlebars and sees black bordered by green. He sees possibilities.
“‘Can’t’ isn’t in my vocabulary,” he says. As he trains for his second Ironman Lake Placid this summer, he knows he is not a typical triathlete.
In some ways, Kreckel is like the other 3,000 who registered to spend a day swimming 2.4 miles in Mirror Lake, biking 112 miles through the High Peaks and running 26.2 miles among Olympic venues: He knows he’s a crummy swimmer. He knows he’s a strong biker. He knows he’s an OK runner.
But he also knows he’s in pain before he puts on his wetsuit; his hands and legs are numb before he gets into his bike shorts; his brain doesn’t quite register where his limbs are in space as he pounds the pavement.
He knows he has multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease in which the immune system attacks the protective sheath around nerve fibers. It disrupts the flow of information between the body to the
