140 miles of inspiration: ASU instructor helps autistic woman compete at Ironman World Championship
ASU Instructor Samantha Calvin (right) was a guide for Carla Simon at the 2023 Ironman Arizona triathlon. Photo courtesy of Samantha Calvin
On a wall in Samantha Calvin’s house are dozens of medals and ribbons she has earned over the years from various half marathons, marathons and triathlons.
They attest to the 15 to 20 hours of training she does every week, going to bed at 8 p.m. so she’s somewhat rested for a long 3 a.m. bike ride, and constantly saying no to social invitations.
“You’re dedicated to some of these events for months,” she said.
Calvin, an instructor in Arizona State University’s Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation — her classes include Fundamentals of Human Trafficking — will try to add to her collection when she competes in the women’s Ironman World Championship in Nice, France, on Sept. 22.
But while the accomplishment will be meaningful — it’s only the second Ironman she’ll have competed in — it will be secondary to the woman she hopes will be right next to her as they cross the finish line.
Calvin will be a guide to 37-year-old Carla Simon, a former Arizona resident who now lives in Wisconsin and describes herself as a “medium- to high-functioning” autistic woman.
If everything goes well, they will swim the 2.4 miles together, bike the 112 miles together and run alongside each other for the final 26.2 miles — and finish under the 17-hour cutoff.
“Knowing what she has to go through in order to get to this level and to compete, she inspires me,” Calvin said. “Like, ‘Yeah, if she can do it, I can do it.’”
Simon will make history at the triathlon, becoming the first known athlete with autism to compete on the Nice course, which features 8,000 feet of elevation gain.
For Simon, however, it’s just the latest challenge in an athletic career that began in 2013 when she weighed 192 pounds and wanted to lose weight. She joined a Unified running club in Chandler, Arizona — Unified sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team — and a year later won gold medals in the 2014 Special Olympics USA Games. Since then, she’s twice run the Boston Marathon, participated in several ultramarathons and competed in numerous marathons and half marathons.
“This is a challenging journey,” Calvin said. “To get where she is takes a lot of work, and sometimes you have to be your own personal cheerleader because no one else is there, which is hard. There’s no one hand-holding you through any of that. She has to wake up and do the same things I do every day. She has to decide on her long rides and her long runs, which are not always the most fun. But she just has the tenacity to keep racing. The Ironman isn’t even her end goal. She wants to run a half marathon or marathon in every state.”
“I do it because mentally, it helps keep me focused,” said Simon, who works part time at a Goodwill store in Wisconsin. “I’m in a better mood after I do it.”
She also understands that with every step, she’s an example for people with autism or other intellectual disabilities.
“I can tell them they can break through challenges,” she said. “I know some of my friends with autism are just as much afraid of hills as I am. They don’t even want to try to do challenging courses because they don’t like hills. But I’m going to show them (at the World Championships) that they can do it.”
Calvin and Simon had been friends on Facebook for a few years when Calvin learned through a social media post that Simon needed a guide to compete in the 2023 Ironman Arizona last November. Guides helps athletes with intellectual disabilities remember when to drink, when to eat, how to keep on schedule through a race and more.
Calvin contacted Simon and agreed to be one of her three guides. Once the race began, any question Calvin might have had about Simon’s ability to finish quickly vanished.
“She’s the most optimistic person that I’ve ever met,” Calvin said. “There was no doubt in her mind that she was going to finish it. It just wasn’t an option not to.
“I think back to my Ironman (races), and I had so many doubts and so many times where I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll give up. Maybe I shouldn’t do this.’ Carla is just fiercely like, ‘If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it.’ I remember we were doing the marathon together and she was just so determined to have a great time. She had a smile on her face the whole way.”
The upcoming Ironman race will be a far greater challenge. Calvin said the course is at least 10 times harder than the Arizona course because of the elevation change. It also will be Simon’s first trip outside the United States, a daunting trip for a woman who said she has sensory issues, is sensitive to loud noises and gets distracted easily.
During the swim, Calvin said she will stay immediately in front of Simon so that Simon can use her as a reference point rather than having to cite any directional buoys. In the bike portion, Calvin will remind Simon when to shift, and during the bike and run, she'll make sure Simon is staying hydrated and nourished.
“The bike course is really challenging,” Calvin said. “At one point, I think there’s a 15% elevation. There’s also four different cutoff points for the bike part we have to hit. If you don’t hit a certain point by a certain time, they pull you out of the race.
“But I have all the faith in the world in Carla. I think she can definitely do it.”
And if they do cross the finish line, that medal will have a different meaning than all the other medals on Calvin’s wall.
“I’ve raced for myself before, obviously,” she said. “But it’s so much more rewarding and brings so much more meaning and value to the training knowing that you’re doing it to help somebody else reach their goals.
“This is for something bigger and greater than me, and even bigger and greater than me and Carla. It’s those other young athletes, especially other young female athletes, who can hopefully hear our story and think, ‘I can do anything.’"
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