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The finish line of the Ironman 70.3 in Augusta, Georgia, had been quiet for two hours when a crowd of 15 came to a sudden roar. The course was closed, having been shut down 8 hours and 30 minutes after the final wave started.

Officially, Army Master Sergeant Cedric King, 37, didn't finish this race. But 12 grueling hours after the double amputee plunged into the Savannah River at the triathlon's start, the finish line crept into view with every faltering thunk of his prosthetics.

King got a DNF, but in the eyes of the crowd, he won.

King’s right foot stepped on an IED in Afghanistan on July 25, 2012. When he woke up in a hospital bed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on August 1, he didn’t know if he’d ever walk again.

But his life was changed after one phone call from Scott Rigsby, the first double amputee on prosthetics to complete the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii – a grueling 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike and a 26.2-mile run.

King was astounded when Risgby asked him to come run the Boston Marathon.

“I couldn’t believe he believed I could do it,” King said. “If you are bold enough to believe in me, then I am bold enough to try. Bold enough to at least show up to the fight.”

That’s the message Rigsby hopes to send through his foundation, which paid to bring 35 wounded and active military members to Augusta, to compete in the half Ironman: a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and 13.1-mile run.

"When they were able bodied, all they did was focus on their training,” said Scott Johnson, president of the Scott Rigsby Foundation. “When they get injured they become victims. They have to make a decision. Either you are going to sit back and give up and let everyone take care of you or you can get busy with what you have."

After becoming the first bilateral (one leg amputated above-the-knee and the other leg below-the-knee) amputee to complete the Boston Marathon in April, just 20 months after losing his legs, King set his sights on the 70.3.

“This is so much harder than Boston,” King said, stopping to lean on a fence at mile five of the half marathon. “The tip of my stump is hitting my prosthetic,” he said, adjusting his sock. “It feels like someone is smashing your elbow into the concrete every time you step down.”

Each runner who passed King stopped to call him a hero and thank him for his service.

“You’re my hero,” a soldier in fatigues said as she walked alongside King. “I hope one day, I can be the soldier I know you were.”

King stopped to shake the woman’s hand. “Thank you,” he said. It was clear he appreciated the words, but his mind was elsewhere.

Johnson had one word to describe watching the man he had mentored for months hit the wall. “Agonizing.”

“Even though he is a military hero, there is still a fear factor that he might not be able to finish. To begin the race, he is running with an injury. Most people don't even race when they get an injury. He starts the race in tremendous pain.”

At mile seven, a race official had already closed off the entrance to the second loop of the course, meaning one thing: King was disqualified. Plowing through the cones, Johnson showed King the way.

“The course is closed! You missed the cut off,” an Ironman race official shouted from his golf cart. “It doesn’t matter!” Johnson bellowed back.

Mile markers were gone. The course was deconstructed. Volunteers were dumping out cups of water. Streets were opened to cars zooming passed. As he passed the would-be 10-mile mark King was now surrounded by a handful of team members.

“I can’t see it,” he gasped. “I just don’t feel like I’ll ever actually see the finish line.”

Around 6:50 p.m., just under 12 hours after he’d jumped in the water, King came down the chute, flanked by cameras, to a roaring crowd of just over a dozen.

His cheerleaders were Scott Rigsby Foundation team members, an Ironman race official so inspired by King that he ran the last seven miles to direct him along the course, a volunteer who followed him with bananas, bystanders who caught a glimpse in that last mile, and maintenance workers paused from dismantling the finish line.

“Thank you,” King gasped with a medal around his neck and tears in his eyes.

“This is the time when life wants to know if you’re really the fighter,” he said. “We all have that moment– the greatest moment. Right before the prince slays the dragon it looks like he is about to get killed. Those are the moments we live for.”

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