Latest news with #HalfIronman
New York Post
a day ago
- Health
- New York Post
My bizarre tongue symptom turned out to be stage 4 cancer
It's safe to say most people wouldn't take on a Half Ironman less than three months after completing chemo and radiation therapy for stage 4 cancer. Then again, most people aren't Keith Giffney. 7 Most people wouldn't take on a Half Ironman after completing chemo and radiation therapy for stage 4 cancer. Then again — most people aren't Keith Giffney. Courtesy of Keith G. Giffney, 56, first noticed something rubbing against his tongue in November 2023. While it wasn't painful, he figured he should get it checked out, and in January 2024, test results revealed he had cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes in his neck and upper chest, classifying it as stage 4. It's a diagnosis that would make many of us feel anxious, distressed or despondent — but not Giffney. 'I had this weird peacefulness about me,' he told The Post. 'When I was diagnosed, I just felt like, you know what, I got this, God's got this. I'm gonna fight this.' Giffney leaned on his family, his faith and his trust in the doctors at Northwestern Medicine — whom he described as on 'a different level' of care. And, having already previously decided to do the Half Ironman — a triathlon that consists of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run — he wasn't going to let a little thing like cancer get in his way. 7 Four years sober, Keith is no stranger to squashing vices. Courtesy of Keith G. His first step was to quit chewing tobacco — while the doctors told him his cancer was related to the HPV virus, not tobacco, it couldn't have possibly helped. 'The funny thing was — January 2023 — my New Year's resolution was to quit,' he said. 'Well, I think I waited 360 days into that year to finally quit.' Four years sober, Giffney is no stranger to squashing vices, admitting that alcohol strained his relationship with his son. 'I did over 131 miles of swimming. I biked over 700 miles and I ran over 55.' Keith Giffney While he did the half, his 22-year-old son completed the full Ironman, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. 'It was part of us doing things and getting back and building that trust together with him and working with him, training with him,' he said. 'We have a great friendship and great relationship. And it has been wonderful.' 7 'We have a great friendship and great relationship. And it has been wonderful,' he said of training with his son. Courtesy of Keith G. Training for the marathon all of last summer was, to say the least, intense. 'I did over 131 miles of swimming,' he said. 'I biked over 700 miles and I ran over 55.' He would train five or six days a week, despite undergoing 12 rounds of chemotherapy and 35 rounds of radiation at the same time. 'I would try to replicate a mini triathlon,' Giffney explained. That meant swimming a couple of miles a day in Lake Geneva, Illinois — where he lives — as well as an ample amount of biking and running. Thankfully, the chemo didn't hit him too hard. 7 'I did over 131 miles of swimming,' Giffney said. 'I biked over 700 miles and I ran over 55.' Courtesy of Keith G. 'I could just tell that I was struggling initially after the chemo to maintain a certain level of speed — I was losing some of the strength in my legs,' he said. 'But I gained it back when I got done with chemo.' The radiation, on the other hand, was a different story. 'I lost all the taste buds, I couldn't swallow,' he said. Because he wasn't producing as much saliva, whenever he would try to swallow while running, he would end up choking instead. 'I also couldn't eat anything by the last few weeks of radiation — that was the worst,' he said. Even then, he managed to put a positive spin on things. 'I needed to lose a few pounds when I was going into it to be lighter running, right?' he said. 7 'I was like, I'm not looking to beat anybody other than myself here,' he said. Courtesy of Keith G. Weeks before the big race, Giffney got good news: Doctors told him his cancer was gone and removed his chemo port. Pretty soon, Sept. 7, 2024, rolled around — the day of the Half Ironman in Madison, Wisconsin. Despite describing himself as a 'pretty anxious person sometimes,' mostly due to his desire to succeed, Keith said he felt very 'at peace' that day. 'I was like, I'm not looking to beat anybody other than myself here,' he said. That doesn't mean it was all smooth sailing, though. 7 Crossing the finish line with his friends and family members — especially his kids — cheering him on was a great feeling. Courtesy of Keith G. When Keith got out of the water after the swimming part of the marathon, he felt disoriented. And once he got on his bike, his leg cramped up — bad. 'It wasn't just my legs. I couldn't even breathe,' he said. 'And then all of a sudden — it just went away.' Crossing the finish line with his friends and family members — especially his kids — cheering him on was a great feeling. 7 'To me, it's always been about having a positive mental attitude,' he said. Courtesy of Keith G. 'My whole goal was showing them how to handle adversity,' he said. 'I wanted to be a good role model for them.' These days, Keith is doing great — and the doctors are optimistic his cancer will remain in remission. He's training for two more events this summer — the Door County Triathlon in July 2025 and Chicago Triathlon in August 2025 — all with his signature upbeat approach. 'To me, it's always been about having a positive mental attitude,' he said. 'Go at it with an outlook that everything's going to be great.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
The life lessons of Sam Long, triathlon's tortoise and hare all in one
A pretty weird thing has been happening these days at the races on the top professional triathlon circuit. Coming out of the water, the big cheers aren't for the frontrunners. The roars come loud for the guy who's almost always in last place after the first leg of the swim-bike-run. That would be Sam Long, a Colorado native who lives and trains in Arizona and, in most races, struggles with competing as an amphibian. Advertisement Put simply, Long, one of the world's top Half Ironman competitors and a top American on the Professional Triathletes Organization T100 Tour, kind of stinks at swimming — relatively speaking, of course. But that would be your thought if you watched Long dragging his water-logged frame out of the drink anywhere from two to four minutes behind the leaders. And then — in a reasonably remarkable display of mental fortitude, leg strength, foot speed and aerobic efficiency — Long starts picking off racers one by one, until sometimes there aren't any more cyclists or runners to pick off. He is the tortoise and the hare all at once. 'A mantra I tell myself is, like, it's not about being the best swimmer, it's about being the best triathlete,' Long said during a recent interview from his Tucson home. 'So I do still have a lot of belief in myself overall as a triathlete.' As well he should. Long, 29, might be the 170th-ranked swimmer on the PTO T100 tour. But he's ranked eighth on the bike and fifth on the run. That tallied to a fifth-place finish on last year's worldwide T100 tour, which has a format similar to auto racing's F1 and races that include a 2-kilometer (1.24-mile) swim, an 80-kilometer (49.7-mile) cycle, and an 18-kilometer (11.2-mile) run. He won three Ironman 70.3 races last year and finished second in the Ironman 70.3 North American Championship last month. The longer run (13.1 miles) and bike ride (56 miles) in the Half Ironman races give him more time to catch the leaders. In the Half Ironman races, where the swimmers are generally not as fast as they are on the elite T100 Tour, which includes just 20 entrants in each race, he can be in the middle of the pack of swimmers and go on to win, though sometimes he pulls off some seeming miracles in those races, too. At the Ironman 70.3 Eagleman last weekend in Maryland, he finished 21st in the swim — 4 minutes, 32 seconds back — then pedaled and ran them down for the win. But every time he enters a T100 race, he knows he is going to be spotting some of the best of the best in the world roughly several hundred yards by the time he gets on his bike. Advertisement That makes Long something like the most extreme version of plenty of weekend warrior triathletes. They've been running since they were toddlers. A good set of lungs, lots of training and a nice bike can make the cycling segment comfortable. But swimming fast is an extremely technical activity that often requires years of practice, preferably from a young age, to develop what swimmers refer to as the ability to 'feel the water.' Long has spent years trying to get to that point, with multiple swim coaches. Hope springs eternal because triathlons often come down to the run. No one wins the race in the water, but you can lose it there. In a pool at the local YMCA, he looks like an elite swimmer. In a T100 race against some of the fastest swimmers in the sport, not so much. 'I encourage him to try to keep things realistic,' said Lara Gruden, Long's wife and a former competitive triathlete herself. 'He will tell me he really wants to make the pack, but that's not a realistic goal. So how about trying to shrink the gap, because when you want to make the pack and you don't, you feel defeated.' And yet, a reprieve might arrive this Saturday. The T100 heads to Vancouver and a swim in the ocean — where currents pushing the swimmers can level the field for a slower swimmer like Long and get him closer to the pack, if the current is heading in the right direction. Also, since Long is so used to swimming alone, he's really good at navigation and finding the most direct route to the transfer station. An ocean swim brings all that into play. The temperature should also work in his favor. He swims best in cold water. Vancouver waters check that box, and the cycling and running courses play into his speed on land. There are lots of rolling hills instead of steep climbs, which are helpful for a bigger athlete who can struggle to drag his body up a steep incline but loves rolling downhill. So why can't Long swim faster? That goes back to his childhood in Boulder, Colo., where he was on a junior swim team but never pursued it in any serious way, not after the age of 10. He played football in high school and ran track, and he skied and mountain biked a lot, too. He didn't swim very much for the next nine years until he tore his medial collateral ligament in a ski crash. Swimming with a pull buoy was the first endurance exercise he could do during rehab. Advertisement He was pretty good at it, and he still loved to cycle and was decently fast. His dad suggested he try doing a triathlon. And then the journey began. He did his first Ironman in 2014. He was just 18. His goal was to break 10 hours for the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and full, 26.2-mile marathon. He finished in 9 hours, 27 minutes, despite being basically clueless about training. The swim never came easily though, and still doesn't, but Jeff Utsch, his swim coach the past three years, has watched him progress. 'He has a growth mindset, and that is part of what makes him who he is, believing he can accomplish things and setting his goals,' said Utsch, who mainly works with masters swimmers and members of the military. 'He's open. He's humble.' To swim fast, you have to remove resistance and increase power, which involves becoming more 'slippery' and understanding what being efficient in the water means. Don't use your arms and legs to position your body. Use them for propulsion. Get the hips up by pressing the lungs and head down. Streamline the body and pull. Be like a boat that planes out of the water. 'It doesn't come naturally,' Utsch said. 'But I have seen people not raised swimming do their best times into their early to mid-40s. I think Sam is going to continue to improve as he gains experience.' That's the physical part. For help with his mind, to learn how to manage swimming in last place without getting depressed, he has turned to Brandon Thielk, a Nashville-based high-performance and life coach who once played independent league baseball and now works with athletes and business leaders. They get together before the season for several days and then do video sessions and calls throughout the year. Thielk tells Long to go get experiences and then unpack the emotions he felt during races. Advertisement 'We're trying to make his system immune to the stress response of the things that emotionally lowered him,' he said. 'It's getting to the core of the issue where he can understand why he feels that way.' Those issues could be anything. A deeply felt inferiority complex left over from childhood, or anxiety about performing poorly and then not being able to support his family financially. Thielk says Long has to constantly remind himself that he didn't start swimming at 4 years old, and he can't get lost in a game of comparing himself to competitors who did. He doesn't have to finish the swim feeling like a king. Neutral is just fine. 'Our goal is to really just get him to the place of when he gets out of the water, he's not at an emotional deficit, where his mindset is not negative, so that he can go into attack mode once he gets onto the bike,' Thielk said. Listening to Long and Gruden and Utsch and Thielk, it's impossible not to draw some life lessons from all of this. Be kind to yourself. Accept who you are. Work on your weaknesses, but don't let them define you because you have strengths, too. We're all works in progress. Long says he has tried to practice a kind of dual existence — his training self and his starting-line self. In the build-up to a race, it's all about wanting to be a better swimmer and working as hard as he can. 'Then once I actually get to the event itself, and I'm standing on that start line, it's like, 'This is where my swim is, I feel good about the work I've done in my swim, I'm going to execute the best possible swim I can,'' he said. 'And then it's also having this overarching belief in myself as a triathlete.' And also a human. (Top photo of Sam Long after taking second place at the Ironman 70.3 North American Championship earlier this month: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images for IRONMAN)
Otago Daily Times
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Otago Daily Times
Emergency man can go the distance
Queenstown's the perfect fit for our new emergency management adviser. Dave Grimes, 53, is an ultra-marathon runner who likes nothing better than running in the mountains. Although raised in Christchurch, his family holidays have always been in the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago. "I just love the district, love the terrain." Starting in Ironman racing in 2009, he competed overseas, including at the Half Ironman world champs in Las Vegas, before transitioning to the longer distances. Only two weekends ago he competed in the Best Dam Backyard Ultra in Otematata, completing 134km before having to pull out with stomach issues. "Endurance sport is where it's at for me," Grimes says. "I just love the mental challenge and toughness of it." He moved south with his wife and son last year after 19 years with the police in Christchurch, a period in which he was heavily involved in the response to the February 2011 earthquake and two Port Hills wildfires. Two months ago, after working for Queenstown's council in an alcohol licensing role, he leapt at the opportunity to join Craig Gibson as one of the resort town's two emergency management advisers. He says the job's about getting the community ready for natural disasters. Here, the biggest threats are an earthquake on the Alpine Fault, flooding, wildfire and pandemics. As well as responding to natural disasters around the country, he advises the council, plans and trains with other emergency organisations, runs exercises and trains and oversees community response groups made up of volunteers. He's responsible for groups in Arrowtown, Arthurs Point, Shotover Country, Lake Hayes Estate and Gibbston, and is in the process of setting up new ones in Hanley's Farm and central Queenstown. "In an emergency, they're going to be our eyes and ears on the ground, particularly if they're isolated." He urges people to check out their local group and think about joining. "It's about giving back to the community, and helping prepare your community for a natural disaster." He also engages with the wider community at every opportunity, for instance the Clued Up Kids safety education programme for more than 250 year 6 school children earlier this month. Grimes says the first, easiest thing people should do is sign up to 'Otago Gets Ready', an online database and two-way communication tool for keeping residents informed before and during emergencies.
