Marcus Cook: “When You Change, People Around You Change”

A few years ago, Cook weighed 500 pounds. Now down half his body weight, he is a freshly minted Kona finisher.

by Courtney Johnson

When Marcus Cook crossed the finish line of the 2018 IRONMAN World Championship brought to you by Amazon, he didn’t just realize a massive short-term goal—it was the culmination of a radical lifestyle change for the 45-year-old Texan. Cook used to tip the scale at nearly 500 pounds before he underwent gastric bypass surgery a few years ago. Since taking up the triathlon lifestyle as a way to get healthy, he’s lost more than 250 pounds and raised more than $100,000 for The IRONMAN Foundation through his racing, including in Kona.

Cook, an executive in the oil and gas industry, spent a month in Kona prepping in the heat and humidity for race day. He also opted for training races, including IRONMAN Texas, that would present similar race conditions. “I kinda put it as the big boxer who has the fight of his life coming up and set up a camp in the big city he’s fighting in,” he said. “I wanted this island to give me the worst conditions it could over those few weeks.”

The strategy paid off.

But the day wasn’t without a series of daunting challenges. Cook’s first hurdle was making the swim time cut-off.  “I looked at my watch and knew I had it in the bag, so I pretty much just enjoyed the swim all the way back in,” says Cook. He hit the swim exit stairs in 1:50.

Cramping on the bike around mile 15, he knew he might be in jeopardy of not making the bike cut-off. “I was alone and in pain,” he recalls. He began to consider dropping out, but after taking on some nutrition started to feel better. “All of a sudden my legs were back, and I hammered 200 watts all the way back to town making the cut off and then some,” he says.

Before the race, Cook had asked people struggling with weight loss or other personal hardships to reach out to him, and he put more than 500 names all over his bike and kit. Those names proved a major source of motivation through the hours of isolation and pain. “I want the person that needs to use my finish line as their starting line to know I’m racing for them as well,” says Cook of his racing.

By the time he made it out on the run, he found an eerily quiet course. He ran solo through a straight hour of rain. Once again, the names of strangers kept him company, driving him to just keep moving forward. “I made it to the turnaround and saw I was a half-mile from the last runner,” he says. “I had dug myself back into a hole with my pace. I started running five cones then walking one cone.” A volunteer told him he’d need to hurry if he was going to make it.

It wasn’t until he made the last turn on Palani that he realized he’d finish under the 17-hour cut-off. “I met my mom at the Amazon banner, and she handed me my ‘Fat Marcus’ [cut-out],” he recalls. “I was running down the chute to meet my family and give my kids a kiss to show them they are more important than any finish line.”

Pro triathlete Andrew Starykowicz placed a Hawaiian lei around Marcus’ neck. “I heard Mike Reilly say those words we all want to hear after a 16:51 hour day,” says Cook. “I had done what I set out to do two and half years ago, when I was a volunteer at IRONMAN Texas. That day I sat on a dock and wondered if I could ever do what these ‘crazy’ people were doing. I have proven that you can do anything you set your mind to. You may not be 500 pounds, but you may have 500 pounds of problems and you can change. I am proof anything is possible.”

After Kona, Cook enjoyed some downtime with family and friends on Kauai before heading back to Texas. He will soon undergo a procedure to remove excess skin, and plans to race IRONMAN Texas again, this time with his son.

“We are so excited to do this race together—it’s going to be an epic story and demonstration that when you change, people around you change.”