By Marilyn Miller

Minden has its own Iron Man!

Charlie Chandler traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee in late September to compete in the IRONMAN Chattanooga, taking on the city’s iconic course on September 28.

Athletes experienced “a 2.4-mile swim in the fast-flowing Tennessee River, a challenging bike course, and a scenic run through downtown Chattanooga.” Charlie finished the course in 14 hours 46 minutes, which was “really good for a first timer.”

According to Charlie’s wife, Kayla Chandler, a total of 45 percent of the people participating in the sold-out race were first-timers. Not all of them finished, of course, and many of them recorded longer times than Charlie.

The IRONMAN Race, a three-sport triathlon, does not have a qualifier. But how did Charlie go from 300-pounds and blood pressure problems to competing in one of the most strenuous sporting events in the world in less than three years?

A friend invited him to participate in a half-marathon (running). He ran. He trained. And he ran and trained some more. And when he got down on himself, Kayla, a nutritionist and personal trainer, encouraged him to run some more. As long as he didn’t hurt himself, she said.

“I finished that in October, and it got me to thinking I could do more stuff, so I trained for another one and got 40 minutes faster.” Charlie recalled. When I finished that, it’s when I signed up for the first Half Iron Man (triathlon), which is only 70 miles.” Only 70 miles. And he signed up for it with only 13 weeks to train. By then, he had gotten down to about 200 pounds.

“So, we bought a bike, then found out I was terrible at swimming.” What to do? “I found a Sprint Triathlon a week later in Bossier City. It was a half-mile swim, an 18-mile bike ride, and a three-mile run. So, I showed up for it with basically no training and finished it in about 7½ hours.”

Charlie really looked forward to the IRONMAN Man race in Chattanooga. “You know, only .01 percent of humans have ever finished the Iron Man. It puts you in a pretty elite crowd to finish it.”

Not only did he finish, he did it in 14 hours, 46 minutes. Will he participate in another IRONMAN? According to Kayla, her husband looks at it as a “one and done kind of thing.”

He (they) will, however, continue to run in marathons. They will compete in the “Log Jammer” in Shreveport on Nov. 23, 2025 and the Louisiana Marathon in Baton Rouge in January 2026.

“It, the IRONMAN Race, was just something I could prove to myself,” Charlie said.