THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE, July 10, 2014

Hailey Jackson wasn't going to let a little thing like a fainting spell that led to a bike crash and a trip to the emergency room stop her attempt to finish her first Ironman.

Sure, it took a week longer than the other finishers, but the satisfaction was just the same.

Jackson, a recent graduate of Lake City High, came back last Sunday, picked up where she left off at the scene of the crash, finished the bike leg and completed the run, much to the delight of the two dozen friends and family members waiting for her at the "finish line" on Sherman - very close to where the actual finish chute was set up the Sunday before.

"It means a lot," Jackson said of finishing. "I couldn't do it on that one day because of nutrition, but even though I got pulled, you can always finish and prove to yourself that all that training was worth it."

REWIND TO June 29.

Jackson said the swim in Lake Coeur d'Alene went great, except for the frustration of "people swimming over you, and grabbing you" ... and she finished the 2.4 miles in 1 hour, 45 minutes, 58 seconds - a little bit faster than she thought she'd finish.

Then, 80 miles into the 112-mile bike leg, as she began to ascend Mica hill riding up the middle of U.S. 95, with cars and bikes on either side, she fainted and fell, to her right.

"I guess my nutrition wasn't up to par," Jackson said. "I was dehydrated, and I ended up fainting for a second, and I fell to my side, but I wasn't going very fast because I was going up a hill. ... There was a really small lane that we were in, there was a car lane to our right and there were the (cyclists) coming down the hill to our left. As soon as I fell, I quickly tried to get out of the way, because the people behind me almost hit me.

"And the first thing I said to them was, 'Keep going, keep going,' because I knew they were close on time, and I didn't want them to stop for me. I tried to unclip as I fell but I wasn't fast enough, and I tweaked my neck. I put my hands out and scraped my elbows up, and basically landed on my head."

She was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Kootenai Health, where she was also tested and treated. She was there four hours.

But she decided that day that she wanted to go back and finish the course the next day, but her dad, Mark, said no, give it a week.

So she came back the next week, starting around noon at the point of the crash, and started pedaling again.

She had company on the re-try - two of her teammates with the Cd'A Tri Team, Connie Price and Zane Graser, who came up just short of the bike cutoff time the previous week, joined her.

"Connie Price is kind of like my Coeur d'Alene Tri mom," Jackson said. "I went to her and said, 'I'm going to do this,' and she said 'I'm not going to let you do that alone, I'll do that too,' and she invited anyone else who wanted to do it too, but it was a really hot day, and Zane was the only one."

With temperatures in the 90s on Sunday - some 20 degrees higher than the previous Sunday - a paramedic was assigned to follow along, and a support car kept ahead of the group as something of a traveling aid station. A thermometer on her bike read 104 degrees at one point on the asphalt.

"I don't think I could have done that alone," Jackson said. "I'm so happy that they did it with me."

THEY TRIED to follow the same bike and run routes as the week before, but tweaked the routes a bit because of traffic - and to be in the shade as much as possible. Instead of City Park, they used nearby Memorial Field to transition from bike to run.

Instead of riding down the center of U.S. 95 like the week before, Jackson, Price and Graser had to ride on the shoulder of the highway - and watch out below.

"We were actually maneuvering road kill," she said. "I got sick to my stomach because there were so many dead deer and porcupines. ... At one point I had to see if there was a car coming because I had to go in the road (to avoid the road kill on the shoulder) ... and the smell was terrible."

They biked some 8 miles farther than the required 112, and to compensate, the run wound up a couple miles shorter than the required 26.2 miles.

Eventually, she - they - finished, together, in slightly less than 17 hours which, had it been done in one day, would have make them Ironman.

Details. Hailey's mom, Clarissa, had a microphone and an amplifier and was among those at the finish line - on the sidewalk, near the clock tower at The Coeur d'Alene Resort - shouting "Connie, Zane, Hailey, you are all Ironman."

Even though it was one week later, the hugs - and the relief - afterward felt the same.

"I was really blessed to have the people I have supporting me," Jackson said. "It (training for Ironman) is a life-changer in a positive way."

She says she plans to keep training this summer with the Cd'A Tri Team, and might try a sprint triathlon before heading off to play softball at NCAA Division II Daytona State in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Once her college softball career is over, she said she wants to enter another Ironman.

"For sure," Jackson said. "I've actually fallen in love with triathlons. I'm definitely going to sign up after I graduate ... maybe I can put it together in one day, and be an Ironman."

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.