The 5 Ways Ironman World-Record Holder Tim Don Recovered From a Broken Neck
When Ironman world-record holder Tim Don suffered a catastrophic neck injury last year, everyone assumed his triathlon career was over. Everyone, that is, but Don.
A top-flight triathlete who breaks his damn neck at 39 and insists he can reign again has gotta have a screw loose, right? Hold that thought, because this comeback chronicle is one of a kind.
Last October, Ironman star Tim Don was en fuego. Fresh off a world-record-setting South American Championship performance in Brazil—where he completed the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.22-mile run in 7:40:23—the London-born, Colorado-residing three-time Olympian hit Kona, HI, with eyes on “the holy grail,” the World Championship.
Then, on a training ride two days before the race, Don got T-boned by a car and suffered a hangman’s fracture. In one heart/neck-breaking moment, all seemed lost.
“A week or so later, when I was in excruciating pain with screws in my skull,” Don recalls, “I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.” See, without hesitation, he’d chosen the most grueling recovery route, which also offered the best chance to compete again: three months with his neck immobilized in a halo brace, secured by, yes, skull screws.
“I had to sleep bolt upright, I couldn’t put my socks on, I couldn’t even get the milk at the back of the fridge,” Don half-jokes now. Still, he resolved to run the Boston Marathon in six months—a journey followed in shoe sponsor On’s goosebump-raising YouTube documentary, The Man With the Halo—and return to Kona in a year. Thanks to a few major factors, this now 40-year-old warrior did both.
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Courtesy of On
Keep Perspective
“It’s a hard, arduous life being a professional triathlete,” he says. “But I knew this was just one of those bumps.”
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Courtesy of On
Think…Small
“Ironman is such a long race, and my training itself is up to 30 hours a week, often on my own, so I like to break things down into smaller segments,” he explains. “So with the halo, it was, ‘OK, let’s just get through the next hour. Let’s just get through today.’”
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Dan Reynolds Photography / Getty
Find Reasons to Laugh
“Jokes are a way of dealing with pain,” he observes, “whether it’s tough racing or, you know, breaking my neck.”
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Dennis Fischer Photography / Getty
Seek Out Loved Ones
Fourth, he relied on his wife, Kelly, who’s “amazing at trying to look at the positive,” and his two kids, “a great distraction because you know life carries on for them regardless.”
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Courtesy of On
Lean on Your Support Network
Finally, he had sponsors like On, which renewed his contract for three years after the accident. “That means a lot,” he says. “They wanted to give me the best chance to get back to the top because they know the kind of character I am.”
Now that faith is being rewarded. Though he’s only “80 to 85%” fitness-wise—and focused on 2019—Don won the Ironman 70.3 Costa Rica in June and crossed the line well under nine hours at Kona.
Perhaps even cooler, he’s inspired hundreds of thousands who have watched the documentary and reached out, moved by his gritty comeback. “I’m blown away,” Don says. “It’s just fantastic that people are using that to help them get through when they’ve got hard times.”
And while he insists he’s just doing what anyone in his shoes would, Don does have advice for us mere mortals: “Never give up, work hard, and don’t hesitate to lean on people for support,” he says, before getting to the elite stuff: “You have to have lofty goals. You have to challenge your body and mind. I’m not gonna lie, I wanna be the best in the world—and fight for it.”
