King of the Grizzlies

This weekend we watched "King of the Grizzlies", one of my favorite movies from childhood. It tells the story of Waub, who is followed from his days as a bear cub into adulthood as a very large Grizzly Bear. The film feels more like a documentary than fiction, with incredible footage all the way.

There's one sequence of events in Waub's life that has always been my favorite. Early on as a 150 lb yearling, he is attacked by a much bigger black bear and Waub runs up a tree to escape. The bear decides to leave Waub alone, but then the King Grizzly, who is about twice the size of the black bear, arrives and the black bear runs off after a brief skirmish. This King Grizzly harasses poor, little Waub and tries knocking over his tree. A very frightened Waub stays in the tree all day and all night, finally getting up the courage to climb down and run off into the woods the next day.

Flash forward half a dozen years later: after some adventures around a cattle ranch, Waub returns to the high mountain country of his youth and finds himself in the very same clearing where he first encountered the King Grizzly. But things are different this time: now Waub is a gigantic 1250 lb adult, fully in his prime. Since Waub is on his turf, the King Grizzly attacks him and a fearsome battle takes place. But Waub is clearly larger and more powerful, and the other bear is sent running. Waub is the new King of the Grizzlies and remains such for the rest of his life.


I love when this sequence plays out in my athletic career, as it has numerous times growing up and in my triathlon career. A young, not-yet-mature Greg gets beaten in swimming races as a 13 and 14 year-old by more mature rival swimmers, but then a few years later Greg, standing well over 6 ft tall after his growth spurt, beats all his same rivals with ease. This also played out in cross-country and track in my high school years.

In my triathlon career, probably my favorite example of this is the 2003 and 2004 Memphis in May Triathlons. In 2003, I was still in college, I still had excess upper-body muscle from my competitive swimming career, and I didn't have any cycling legs yet, having biked a total of about 16 months up to that point in my triathlon career, spread over 3-4 years.

In the time-trial format of the race, I was the first to go. I had a good swim, and at the time, I had a pretty good bike split (about 55:30). I was passed by Bjorn Andersson with about four miles to go but I ended up catching and passing him in the run. Since he started about :40 behind me, he ended up beating me in overall time by :12. Tim DeBoom ended up winning easily though, swimming a little slower than me, biking a little faster, and running a lot faster.

At the time, I idolized Tim, but he acted very distant and uninterested when I tried talking to him before and after the race. To me, it seemed like he felt like he was too good to talk to me, and this pissed me off.

The following year, Bjorn was not there but Tim was back to defend his title. I was back to dethrone him. Between 2003 and 2004 I had matured as a triathlete. I still had a lot more upper-body muscle than I do today, but I had gained some real cycling legs after putting in the first serious cycling training of my life.

As the defending champion, Tim went first and I started :40 behind him. I swam fast and caught him by the end of the swim. We started the bike together but within a mile or two, I was already out of his sight. He biked much faster than the year before, but still, with my 52:02 bike split in windy conditions (over :30 faster then Bjorn's from the year before) I had crushed him beyond any kind of recovery on the run. That was a really sweet victory for me, my biggest victory at the time in my career, and still one of my favorites.