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FLRC Newsletter - January 2005 |
| Hawaii Ironman | |
When you meet John Schabowski, you might not guess he's discovered his sports niche as an Ironman triathlete.
The 52-year-old Ithaca resident is 6'3" tall and weighs 210 pounds. But Schabowski has finished the 140.6-mile, grueling multisport race nine times, and that's nine times more than most mere mortals.
On Oct 16, Schabowski finished the Hawaii Ironman, in Kailiua–Kona, in 16 hours, 35 minutes, 8 seconds. The Ironman requires athletes to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles, and run a 26.2-mile marathon.
After starting out as a runner 20 years ago, he has now finished five Ironmans in British Columbia, one in Idaho, and three in Hawaii, usually in the 12–14-hour range.
"I started out as a road runner after watching the 1984 Olympics," said Schabowski, a Cornell graduate who this year moved back to Ithaca from San Jose, CA. "That inspired me to run my first marathon, the Dallas White Rock Marathon. But, because of my size, marathons beat the crap out of me. I then saw an article about triathlons, and said, 'Hey, I can swim, I can ride a bike, I can do this.'"
Schabowski began competing in International (Olympic) distance triathlons, then in 1989 entered Ironman Canada in Penticton, 100 miles east of Vancouver.
"I realized I could do the Ironman," said Schabowski, who finished in 14:46. "I'm not real fast, but I'm like the energizer bunny—I could go and go and go. I also learned how to train for them, because I realized I was woefully undertrained for the whole thing."
The next step was to enter the lottery for official entry into the "Holy Grail" of Ironman triathlons—Hawaii. There are essentially four ways to get into the Hawaii Ironman: quickly enter within the first 24–48 hours when the application window opens; qualify by time or an age-group victory; enter the lottery draw; or have a sponsorship connection.
With a stroke of luck, Schabowski was picked by lottery in 1992 and 1993, and finished both in a little over 13 hours, well under the 17-hour time limit. Then a new marriage to Ithaca's Deb Yelverton and full-time work in a Silicon Valley start-up company put Ironman training on the back burner until 2003, when friends convinced him to try again.
Schabowski finished the Idaho Ironman, moved to Ithaca, and asked himself the big question: "Do I want to enter the Hawaii Ironman lottery? Yeah, I'll send it in."
Expecting to never do an Ironman again, he sat out the bleak winter in Ithaca doing absolutely no training. Then the acceptance letter arrived in April.
"I knew I had enough time to train, so I ramped up the swimming at the YMCA, and began cycling the roads in Lansing," said Schabowski, whose Ironman personal best is 12:24. "I train alone because, when you do one of these Ironmen, you're out there alone. There may be lots of others around you during competition, but you can't do anything as a group. For the Ironman, it's totally you. You must find it within yourself to do it, even when you wonder many times, 'Why am I doing this?'"
Schabowski knows exactly why he'll continue doing the Ironman.
"You have to find your own reasons for wanting to be out there (for hours), and wanting to finish," Schabowski said. "It's like anyone who has found his/her little niche at what you're good at. You might look at my marathon time of six hours, and think I walked. But I did run 20 miles of it, and, hey, by the way, I'd already been out on the course for 10 hours.
"When you finish an Ironman, you have the feeling you can accomplish anything you set your mind to do," he added. "Persevere, put in the work, and the Ironman race becomes a celebration of the training. The life lesson you take away is the power of your mind—combined with setting goals and preparation—will make it possible that you can do it."
For information on the Ironman, go to www.ironmanlive.com or www.ironmanusa.com.
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