It goes something like this:

First, a 2.4-mile swim with only hands to guide through water so choppy, the waves pulled to great peaks and valleys by the "ho'omumuku" crosswinds, that it saps the energy from your bones, leaves them feeling hollow but somehow heavier than they had been before.

Then, 112 miles on a handbike through endless miles of twisting, turning, double-lined track. The only sound you can make out over the incessant buzzing of the wind in your ears, the beat of your own heart, filling your head near to bursting as you pump, pump, pump your arms, revolution after grueling revolution.

And finally, when it seems impossible to go on, the day's scorching temperatures abating only briefly as the sun begins to fade beyond the horizon, when it seems a 26.2-mile wheelchair run along blistering blacktop through barren fields of black lava might actually be the thing that pushes you to your mental and emotional limit, that finally shifts the brick and mortar foundation of your resolve, you – ragged breath, aching limbs and all – gather yourself and complete your final transition with the help of spotters.

You strap on your gloves, situate yourself as best you can in the seat of your racing wheelchair. 

You start off again.

***

"I was in pain," Minda Dentler says, the statement followed, unbelievably, by a laugh. But it's really not all that surprising for Dentler, the first female handcyclist to complete the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. For Dentler, a triathlon isn't just another challenge to overcome in a life that, to this point, has been full of challenges – it's the reward following weeks, months of training and preparation...following years, decades of life spent in sedentation.

And really, what's one day of pain in a life spent overcoming a labyrinth of obstacles?

***

It's interesting to hear the drawl of the Pacific Northwest creep slowly, like sap down the nubby ridges of a tree's bark, into the voice of a woman from India. But Dentler, born in Bombay, raised by her adoptive family in Spokane, Wash., and now a resident of New York City, slides easily into the parlance when the subject becomes more to her liking.

"I actually grew up watching the Ironman on NBC, or maybe it was the 'Wide World of Sports,' with my father," Dentler says. "And I remember thinking how incredible these athletes were to push themselves to the limit and finish what looked like a really grueling race. And I never would have thought that, fast-forward 20-some years later, I would be crossing that same finish line."

In a manner befitting a woman who has now completed the Ironman three timesa - at the championships in Kona, in Louisville, Ky. and at Challenge Roth in Germany - Dentler likens her struggles, her frustrations as a child, a young woman, dealing with the everyday trials of a physical disability, to being denied something akin to a finish line.

"I think growing up with a physical disability, it was a bit challenging just because I felt like I didn't finish," she says, punctuating the thought with a sigh. "I was embarrassed because I had to wear a back brace and leg braces and I couldn't do sports and all the other things that my friends and family members were doing, so in a way I felt left out."

Even before she came to know the joy that comes with competing, of throwing herself – body, mind and soul – into training, of setting herself against the world's elite able-bodied athletes and testing herself in a way that few people can, or ever would, Dentler knew she wanted more.

She became convinced that, though she loved Spokane and will always consider it home, she was destined for a "bigger life," than anything The Lilac City could ultimately offer her.

But that opportunity for something bigger almost never came for Dentler.

***

Born in India, Dentler contracted polio before her first birthday, and due to the country's lack of infrastructure, she went for years without proper treatment. But Dentler, ever the optimist, considers herself to be the winner of something she likes to call "the human lottery," landing as she did with her adoptive family in the U.S.

Don't think for a second that Dentler's adoptive parents took it easy on her, treated her differently than they did her three siblings because her mobility was impacted. 

"I still had to complete the same chores as my siblings and practice the piano and do my homework and all of that. I'm really happy that they raised all of us to be responsible and independent and curious people. And I'm forever grateful to my adoptive parents for basically giving me a chance at life."

Asked about what it was like growing up in Spokane with her physician father – his own father was a polio victim – and the rest of her adoptive family, Dentler began speaking, not of the town, of the Spokane Symphony or the annual Lilac Festival, but of her "large family."

"I guess that makes for many rowdy and fun and exciting moments,"Dentler says, a smile evident in her voice. "I actually have a sister the exact same age as me, so it was great having a relationship with my sister so close in age."

Still, Dentler's physical disability – though she didn't let it stop her – certainly slowed her progress, kept her on the sidelines far longer than she now likes to admit. She spent years as a self-proclaimed "couch potato" before realizing the world had so much more to offer, if she could just get out and go for it.

Now, three Ironmans, a cross-country move and one child later, Dentler's living life as she always dreamed.

"I think it shows that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they're dedicated to making it happen," she says, speaking of completing an Ironman, though she very easily could have been discussing the entirety of her own reshaped life. "I started athletics as an adult. I basically went from being a couch potato, to learning how to handcycle at 28, swimming at age 30, racing a wheelchair at 31 and finishing an Ironman at age 35.

"I think that's a pretty fantastic progression."

***

When Dentler says she wasn't an athlete until age 28, she means it. There was a time when she didn't know how to use a racing wheelchair, even to swim. She built herself into an Ironman competitor, step by step, from the ground up.

"I was introduced to hand cycling and then a few years later I had watched a friend compete in the New York City Triathlon in the wheelchair division. And I made a promise that year that I would sign up for it the following year. And I did."

Watching that friend, Jason Fowler – who lost the use of his legs after a motorcycle accident – complete the New York City Triathlon then cross the finish line at Kona inspired Dentler, spurred her to action.

"I crossed my first finish line in the New York City Triathlon and even though I was really slow, I really enjoyed the experience. After that, I wanted to do more."

A decade or so later, in what could rightly be considered one of the great understatements of the 21st century, Dentler now thinks of the 140-plus-mile grueling Ironman race – that 2.4-mile swim, those 112 miles on the bike, the final 26.2 miles of winding road – not in terms of a mind-body crushing test of willpower and inner strength, but instead as just a "very long day." That day brought the pain, but it also brought esteem, for herself and her competitors.

When she's on the course, Dentler says, she does what she can to "stay positive and focus on being in the moment."

"When you're out there for hours on end, you have a lot of time to have conversations with yourself," she says, the words followed again by a laugh, though the struggle of an Ironman day seems to be fresher in her mind this time. "I am usually in pain as well, but I never have that feeling of wanting to quit. I'm also inspired by people around me doing the same thing, pushing themselves to the limit to reach a personal goal."

"It's a great feeling to be out there and you're really working hard and in the moment it's really hard. But it's also rewarding to execute a plan that you have worked on for the duration of a year until you get to that starting line."

And that's where true Ironman competitors like Dentler really complete the race. It's never that day out on the course – it's in the six to nine months of preparation that goes into training, in plotting a plan of how to attack that unforgiving course.

Dentler, self-sufficient as she is, couldn't manage all that preparation without a deeply dedicated support system: coaches, nutritionists, partners to ride long miles with her on dangerous stretches of highway. It's a big job supporting a wheelchair athlete. Her husband Shawn heads up the team and is usually the one traversing the difficult miles alongside Dentler. He's now preparing for his own half-Ironman, his first.

"If it wasn't for him I would never have been able to do triathlons. He is my rock. He has done all the major miles with me. He rides his bike with me hundreds of miles. He helps me in my transitions, he's amazing. He's my mechanic..."

She trails off, the sound of gratitude mixed with happiness evident in her voice.

***

But Dentler isn't just an Ironman athlete. She's also a public speaker, the director of Multinational Operations at AIG and a mom of a 1-year-old daughter. 

And she's an ambassador for vaccination and the eradication of polio.

Last summer, with help from Rotary International, Dentler took a trip to India -– her first since 1989 when she and her adoptive family spent a summer working at a small-town hospital – where she met Rukhsar Khatoon, India's last polio victim.

Dentler admits that when she met Rukhsar, she really wasn't sure what to say. Although she wanted to offer some kind of positive, heartfelt message, she couldn't help but view the exchange through the eyes of a mother. Little Rukhsar was only 4 years old at the time and surrounded by a wall of people and cameras and was ushered toward Dentler, someone she did not know, by the crowd closing in around them.

Rukhsar began to cry, and Dentler did her best to comfort her.

"It breaks my heart to see children dealing with polio because in a way their life will be somewhat limited. I think in a way it just reinforces how lucky I am to have been adopted and to have the opportunity to get the medical care and the education I have received in the U.S. to be independent, to lead this lifestyle."

Painful as it is to see a small child affected by such a devastating disease, Rukhsar was, in the grand scheme of things, fortunate. Having been diagnosed at such a young age, she received treatment quickly and now walks with just a small limp, a perfect example of the strides that have been taken in the fight against polio, in India and elsewhere, in the last three decades.

"We're in a stronger position than ever to end polio," says Derek Ehrhardt, a commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a team lead for the Eastern Mediterranean Polio Team.

"With that said there are some serious challenges that remain. But I think it's important to look at some of the successes we've had just in the last year, last couple years. For the first time ever no polio cases were detected in the African continent for more than a year. And Southeastern Asia was certified polio-free in 2014."

Through the arduous and enduring work of a committed group of doctors, government workers and agencies, India has all but eradicated polio. But it remains an ongoing process, a continuing battle by the "tireless, committed volunteers" Dentler saw in India and Ehrhardt works with on a daily basis in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the last two countries affected significantly by the disease.

It's a fight that, as Ehrhardt notes, requires in-the-trenches efforts, hand-to-hand combat. When a child like Rukhsar contracts polio, Ehrhardt's in-country team conducts a thorough case investigation of the area, as well as of the child and his or her family. What Ehrhardt's team wants to know is where the child contracted the disease. Did they, or their family, have a travel history? This is of particular concern in a place like India, where the country's anti-polio infrastructure is still relatively new and nearby Pakistan continues to struggle with the ravages of the disease.

"There are four major strategies for global polio eradication initiatives. One is you'd have strong routine immunization. So in those areas of the country where you can, where access allows, you work your best to improve the routine immunization coverage so all children are reached through that. You also do mass immunization campaigns. We're talking herculean efforts to reach every child. You have teams of vaccinators literally go door-to-door in the country delivering vaccine to children."

You also implement "surveillance" efforts. In this context, "surveillance" simply means parsing stool samples to determine where a certain strain of the disease originated through genetic typing, "fingerprinting every virus to know what its father and mother are," as Ehrhardt says.

And finally, you put something like a system of checks and balances in place – what Ehrhardt and his team call "mop ups," wherein any missed areas are ferreted out and re-assessed.

"Sadly, there's no treatment for polio," says Ehrhardt. Once a child contracts the disease, "the best we can do is protect the children in that surrounding community and then future children by establishing firm and strong immunization programs."

Five years polio-free now, India's efforts to ensure the disease does not again become a country-wide challenge continue.

"India continues to work on polio eradication with a vaccination door-to-door," Ehrhardt says. "They are working to make sure they maintain their immunity levels because neighboring Pakistan is always a risk. 

According to the Rotary website, polio cases worldwide have been reduced by 99 percent since the very first polio vaccination project in the Philippines in the late 1970s. It estimates that it's immunized or helped to immunize "more than 2 billion children against polio in 122 countries."

Per Ehrhardt, the goal for polio's global eradication is this year. Already, the disease has essentially been quarantined in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Already, the wagons have circled those countries.

Afghanistan dealt with 28 cases of polio in 2014. That number fell to 19 in 2015.

Pakistan, on the other hand, had 294 reported cases of polio in 2014. By 2015 that number had dropped to 51.

Rotary has even brought the fight for eradication home. This past November, Rotary General Secretary John Hewko and a team of eight Rotary staff members completed a 104-mile bike ride in Arizona to help raise more than $4 million in funds to continue polio eradication efforts. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to match the funds 2-to-1, bringing the total contribution to well more than $13 million.

India has taken great strides, is almost free. Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to improve with many hands, especially those of Rotary, shuffling them in the right direction. And yet, the fight continues.

For her part, Dentler remains certain.

"I really believe the eradication of polio will be one of the greatest world health victories of our time," she says.

***

Dentler may be the ultimate optimist, but she's not unrealistic. She knows the challenges her physical disability has brought into her life. She knows that had she not contracted polio, she'd be a very different person.

"Yes, it's difficult for me to pick up my baby daughter and it takes me a lot longer to get around," she says. "I've had polio all my life so I really don't know anything else. I don't really think about the 'what if' and the past. I just focus on what's going on today and the future."

That focus on the future, on what's next, on the obstacle in front of her, not the obstacle that will come in two years, after a punishing 112-mile handbike ride, has brought Dentler to where she is today. It's brought her to the U.S., to family in Spokane, to friendships at the Asphalt Green Triathlon Club in New York, to a community of racers and athletes who train and work and treat Dentler just how she truly wants to be treated - as an equal.

It's brought her to Shawn. And it's brought her to her daughter.

It's something she wouldn't trade for the world.

"I'm really fortunate because I feel in some ways like having this disability has led me to be able to lead an amazing life. When I think about it, having been adopted by an American family, moving to the U.S. and all of that, you know I was really afforded a lot of opportunities. And I really say that I have to humbly acknowledge that had I not been adopted, I may not even be alive today. Had I stayed in India after contracting polio, my life would have been very different and possibly somewhat limited, and I may not have had access to the education and medical care I've received in the U.S."

***

When Dentler crosses a finish line, as she did for the very first time as an Ironman in Louisville in 2012, and for the first time at the Ironman World Championships in Kona on Oct. 12, 2013, there's an immediate feeling of elation, an instantaneous and palpable sense of rightness.

In fact, when she finally completed Kona in 2013 after failing in 2012, Dentler was so elated that "I couldn't sleep until 2 p.m. the next day," she says. "I was so excited. But I was in so much pain that my shoulders – I couldn't lift my arms very high, and it was really hard to recover from that."

It took her "a couple of days" to get back to normal after the race, to get back to a sense of physical and mental homeostasis. But while many people would look at what they'd done, would look at having become the first female handcyclist to complete the Ironman in Kona in 2013, clap their hands, call it a job well done and move on, Dentler decided she wasn't finished.

Completing Kona brought Dentler's triathlon and road race total above 30. She's also won two USA National Triathlon titles. But in true Minda Dentler fashion, looking back on that day in Oct., looking back on the exhaustion, the mute conversations in her head as she doggedly chased her goal, the hours of pain and frustration, the elation at the end of it all, it wasn't just the completion of the event - her reward for all those weeks of training - that left her feeling so woozy with emotion.

It was seeing her friends and family, those who have supported her through a lifetime of challenges, through a fight at home and abroad against the devastating effects of polio that left her smiling.

"I was so happy to be done. I was in so much pain. It was great to finally be able to stop - so happy. It was 14 and a half hours of constant movement," she says. "But I was also really happy that my friends and family were there to support me and I was able to see them at the finish line.

"It was a pretty amazing moment."