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Montoursville grad Erica Manning finishes tough Ironman World Championship in under 13 hours

PHOTO PROVIDED Erica Manning, a 1996 Montoursville High School graduate, poses with her bike in front of the 2019 Ironman World Championship sign in Hawaii, in October. Manning competed in the Ironman World Championship and finished in under 13 hours.

Erica Manning and her sister Melissa were working out in a gym in July of 2008 with a trainer along with two of their friends. It was before Crossfit became popular and the foursome were, in Erica Manning’s own words, “making a scene” in the gym by jumping around.

They weren’t necessarily training for something in particular. It was just training to exercise and be in shape. That’s when Manning, a 1996 Montoursville graduate, suggested that they should put that training toward something. What did they agree on?

A triathlon.

Fast forward to October of this year, and Manning found herself riding her bike through very powerful winds on the curvy course in Hawaii. Every direction she looked, she was reminded of the strong wind gusts, from seeing blades of grass blowing hard, to bushes and trees swaying.

Off to the side of the road, she noticed a fellow competitor standing with her bike, as if to try to wait out the brutal winds.

“This wind isn’t going to get any better. It’s only going to get worse,” Manning said to herself.

It was a unique scene for Manning in Hawaii. From crystal clear, gorgeous blue waters to start the day to the whipping winds in the afternoon. That was what Manning experienced for the 2019 Ironman World Championships.

“It was a long, hot, hard day,” Manning said. “I’ve been working for it for so long, so I can’t complain.”

October was the culmination for Manning of where she started in 2008. She has done numerous races, including triathlons in the past, but the Ironman World Championships was the highlight of her racing career thus far.

“That’s definitely the triathlon goal. There’s other races that are more extreme — some people go to Ultra Ironman — but that was kind of my height of where I wanted to go with this hobby, this sport that we do,” Manning said. “We love the challenge and love being active and competing in this adult sport.”

Entering the race, Manning had a goal in mind to finish in under 13 hours, but secretly, she was telling herself she was hoping to finish in under 12. Manning had finished in under 12 hours in a triathlon in May in Santa Rosa, California, but in Hawaii, she finished in 12 hours, 43 minutes.

The competition itself is a grueling one, starting with a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride and ending with a full marathon (26.2 miles). Manning’s time in Santa Rosa qualified her for the competition in Hawaii.

“It’s just a lot of training that goes into that,” Manning said. “The race that day, it’s an amazing experience. I’ve been doing this now for 11 years, so it was a long road. I went from starting with sprint triathlons to Olympic races, half Ironman races to full Ironman races. Once I knew I could do an ironman, I started out just wondering if I could finish in the 17 hours that you’re allotted. Each one I was improving with a pretty decent amount. I always just wanted to go because its the world championships.”

She often would run three times a week, with at least one of them being 20 miles. She rode her bike for six hours and would swim two or three times a week.

Manning remembers waking up that morning before the sun had even risen and checking in before she sat around waiting for her age group to go into the water. That’s when she began the 2.4-mile swim out toward two boats.

All the stress and nerves Manning had were gone as soon as she heard the starting gun.

“You’re looking up and there’s helicopters swirling around and it’s very surreal,” Manning said of the start of the race. “It’s just a great feeling. You made it. You’re at the start line.”

You wouldn’t tell by looking at her, but Manning has a metal rod in her back due to scoliosis. She’s had that since getting surgery as a junior at Montoursville. And while both Manning sisters had it, it never once affected their ability to compete or run.

“I kinda just got used to it because I have no choice, right? I definitely get stiff, my lower back bothers me when I’m riding my bike,” Erica Manning said. “Sometimes it’s even more difficult because you’re just stiff walking, but running it’s surprisingly even easier. The rest of your body hurts, but I don’t think of my back when I’m running.

“I used to work in a gym and a girl who had a similar surgery came in and she was so upset because her doctor told her she would probably never be able to do anything physically strenuous again,” Manning said. “I told her that clearly her doctor was wrong because as the Ironman motto goes ‘Anything is Possible’ and luckily it has never prevented me from doing whatever I have set my mind to do.”

Melissa Manning was a track and field star at Montoursville and won a state championship before going to Clemson. There she ran on the track team for two years until she got injured. Melissa’s rod was taken out while she was on the track team after she fractured a vertebrae, but Erica still has hers.

Funny enough, Erica was never huge into running growing up and didn’t compete in track and field. It wasn’t until 2008 that she even thought about running when she pitched the idea of doing a triathlon to Melissa and her friends. But the Mannings did triathlons and half Ironman races before they ran their first full Ironman race in Lake Placid, New York, and both finished.

“They never not completed an Ironman race that they were in. They always finished and got their medals,” Erica and Melissa Manning’s mother, Joan, said.

So it’s no surprise that the wind wasn’t going to stop Manning from finishing the Ironman World Championships.

As she was pedaling, Manning wanted to take a quick sip of water numerous times, but didn’t want to risk taking a hand off the handle bar to grab her water bottle due to the powerful winds. Just feet in front of her, Manning saw another biker riding at a nearly 45-degree angle due to the winds pushing him.

The only thing Manning was thinking was if he fell and crashed, she’d have to quickly go around him.

“You’d see in front of you people all of a sudden being pushed to the side,” Manning said. “All of a sudden they’re riding along and they seem to be moved a few feet over. I was over on the brim of the road and I was like ‘how the hell did that happen?'”

The bike portion, due to winds, was probably the toughest portion of the race for Manning. But after she got done with that, it was the final leg of the competition: a full marathon.

While most marathons get underway early in the morning to take advantage of light, the Ironman World Competition is a bit different. Due to having a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike portion, the marathon part of the race was toward the evening. Manning, and the numerous other runners, all had glow-in-the-dark sticks to wear as necklaces so they could be spotted by fellow runners not to run into one another on the course.

“I felt pretty good there at the beginning of the run until you get up to the 20K (mark) and it’s hot, you have a lot of miles in. Then, it’s more of the mental game of getting through that marathon in the heat. It gets dark so early and they don’t have a lot of lights out, so everyone’s wearing glow-in-the-dark necklaces.”

At mile 16, Manning entered what’s known as the Energy Lab, considered the toughest part of the marathon in Hawaii. There are no spectators, it’s uphill and it’s open. In other words, no cover or shade from the heat.

Manning knew about the Energy Lab, and even said that it’s an iconic part of the race. But it was once she got over that and was running downhill toward the water that it set in for her that she was closing in on the finish.

“The last few seconds of that race, all of the pain that you’re in, mental (and) stress, leading up to those last 10 seconds makes all of the rest of it just go away,” Manning said. “You make a turn and then it’s like the finish line where the fence is set up and the way it is, it kind of bends, so you can see the finish line off in the distance.”

It was at that point that the emotion set in for Manning.

“I had to fight back the tears because it was just such an amazing moment,” she said. “I ran down and all of the people that were there and traveled out to see me (were there). I gave a big high-five to everybody.”

Those final moments of the Ironman World Championships were picturesque, something you’d see on a painting. As Manning approached the finish line, she literally was running into the sunset in the distance as it set over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

“As terrible as you felt, you were like I couldn’t even think to complain right now because I’m in Hawaii for the world championships pretty much running into the sunsets,” Manning said.

And what better way would there be to end a race?

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