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For most athletes, the goal of competing is to win.

But when Dr. Geoffrey Gill, a 1993 graduate of Steamboat Springs High School, stepped to the starting line of the Subaru Ironman Canada in Penticton, British Columbia, in August, he wasn’t thinking about winning the race; the 36-year-old simply wanted to finish it.

Twelve hours, 10 minutes and 57 seconds later, Gill crossed the finish line. He was 777th in the field of 2,832 competitors (132nd in the men’s 35 to 39 age division), but he was a winner nonetheless.

“It felt awesome,” Gill said from his home in Eugene, Ore., on Thursday. “It was one of the longest days of my life, but I set a goal and accomplished what I set out to do.”

Gill said endurance races like the Ironman are not about beating the person standing next to you at the starting line. It’s about pushing the limits of your body, pushing the limits of your mind and pushing the limits of your expectations.

Gill said when you reach the finish line, nobody really cares about your time or your place if you are not the winner. At the finish line, the things that matter are known only to the athlete in the race.

Gill said he admires the elite athletes who compete in an Ironman, but the ones he really respects are those who keep going until the end, the ones who keep going up to the 17-hour deadline that marks the official end of the race.

Getting to the finish line has been a long journey for Gill, who works as a doctor in Oregon these days.

He was a standout football player and a wrestler at Steamboat Springs High School in the early 1990s. He wrestled in the 189-pound weight division his senior year.

But he admits that after college, medical school and his residency, he was in pretty bad shape. He was 30 pounds overweight and struggled to run a mile.

The college experience, the pressure of medical school and the lifestyle of a resident took a toll on his physical fitness. By the time he and his wife settled in Oregon, Gill knew he needed to do something and set his sights on competing in a triathlon.

“I gained a lot of weight as an undergrad,” Gill said. “I wanted to lose weight in medical school, but then I started my residency. I was working 100 to 120 hours a week, and I didn’t eat very well.”

He started working with a personal trainer who encouraged him to enter running events and triathlons, and he lost most of his excess weight. He competed in two marathons, four half-marathons and two half-Ironmans. His most recent accomplishment was the full Ironman in Canada, which included a 2.4-mile swim in Lake Okanagan, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run — something Gill thought was impossible just a few short years ago.

“I started small and set realistic goals,” Gill said. “That is the key to succeeding at something like this.”