“It was some of the best advice I’ve had in my life,” Rigsby said.

That advice carried Rigsby to Hawaii, where he stayed at a bed and breakfast in Puako.

At the bed and breakfast, which granted him a complimentary stay, he would again struggle with continuing.

“During training, I had a miserable experience,” Rigsby said. “It just seemed like I was on fire. I couldn’t do anything to cool down my body. In the meantime, I’m walking around the house, sweating like crazy, and I can’t figure out why I’m breaking out in a rash all over my neck and chest.”

It turned out that the owners used a specific detergent that caused him to break out in an allergic reaction.

It took two days for Rigsby to start training again, with the help of Benadryl, just 23 days before the World Championship.

When the day came to put all his training, dreaming and praying on the line, Rigsby woke up at 3:30 a.m., and hit the water hours later with the 1,799 other participants.

Heading into the water, Rigsby had thoughts of finishing, and so did his fellow competitors.

“One of the athletes said, ‘You’ve got to finish this race. If you finish this race, you can change the world. Our military men and women need you,’” Rigsby said. “I got the message loud and clear.”

Rigsby made it through 2.4 miles in the Pacific Ocean in 1:28:48, despite getting kicked in the eye 200 meters in.

The switch to the bike went well, and Rigsby was pedaling along when the Hawaiian crosswinds caught him at about 30 miles per hour.

The winds slowed him down to about an 8-mile per hour pace, and finishing the upcoming marathon through the added fatigue looked grim.

Rigsby looked to God, as he has so many times throughout his life, and this time there was no answer.

“Since He was not (responding) to me, I thought what would He tell me if He was,” Rigsby said. “He would tell me to control the things that I can control, and not worry about the rest.”

Rigsby controlled the cadence of his pedaling, lightening up on the bike’s tension, and controlling his heart rate. After he achieved those two strategies, he was back riding at 25 miles per hour, finishing the 112-mile course in 8:19:30.