IRONMAN 70.3 World next for Hicks, 53
-
Joseph Hicks of Farragut races his bike as part of the Chattanooga Half IRONMAN May 21. - Photo submitted
-
Joseph Hicks of Farragut ran in the Chattanooga Half IRONMAN May 21 to qualify for the World Championship. - Photo submitted
Farragut’s Dr. Joseph Hicks, 53, a orthodontist with Epic Orthodontics in Farragut and Lenoir City, recently qualified to compete in the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship.
Hicks will face the elements as he runs, cycles and swims to win the half IRONMAN event Aug. 27 in Lahti, Finland.
He qualified after competing in the Chattanooga 70.3 (half) IRONMAN event Sunday, May 21, where he finished first in his division.
“So I accepted the slot for the World Championship,” Hicks said.
“I’m super excited,” he added about heading to Finland. “Anytime you make to the world championship — for the half or full — it is a huge accomplishment.
“I am very honored to be able to go.”
For Hicks, competing in IRONMAN events is “an addiction.
“There are a lot of people who will do an IRONMAN event one-and-done,” he said. “They don’t have the desire to do more.
”But then, there are those of us who it becomes a lifestyle,” Hicks added. “It becomes an addiction, and we do several races a year.
“This year, on my calendar, I have six IRONMAN events.”
He explained the full IRONMAN is 140.6 miles.
“It consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run,” Hicks said.
The half IRONMAN in Finland he is preparing for is a 70.3-mile event: 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run.
“You don’t stop,” he said. “Qualifying is based upon your finish in your division.
“It’s unlike a Boston Marathon, where you have a time qualification,” Hicks added. “So, if you’re 50 years old you have to run faster than three hours and 25 minutes.”
In an IRONMAN competition, “At each race they may have 50 total qualifying slots available, and they give one or two slots per age group,” he said.
“There may be several hundred competitors in your division, but there are only one to two spots available in each division,” Hicks added.
“You only get those qualifying slots in an IRONMAN event. You can’t do a triathlon on a local level and qualify for the world championship.”
While Hicks is competing in the half event, he competed in the full event in Kona, Hawaii, in 2019.
“I qualified for that one when I did IRONMAN Germany,” he said.
At present, Hicks has done 11 full IRONMANs and about 36 half IRONMANs.
“I used to be a cyclist. I was a bike racer,” he recalled. “In the off-season I would run … then someone said, ‘If you could learn to swim, you could do a triathlon.’
“So, I jokingly said, ‘Sure, I can swim. I’ll do a triathlon,’” Hicks added. “I signed up. It was a sprint (a very short triathlon) — not an IRONMAN.
“Well, I was the last one out of the pool, but with my cycling and running background, I actually finished that race second overall,” he said.
That was 2014 — “my first triathlon,” Hicks said.
Then he learned the hardest triathlon is the IRONMAN and decided to do one.
“My first full IRONMAN was in October 2015, and that was IRONMAN Maryland,” he recalled.
To get ready for such a feat, “you train a lot,” Hicks added. “It is a commitment to train for an endurance race of that magnitude.
“So I exercise before work and after work every day.”
