Triathlon

With the sound of cheers from his family and well-wishers filling his ears, Brian Boyle finished the Ford Ironman World Championship in the warm Hawaiian darkness, three years after his near-fatal car accident on a rural road in Charles County. Wearing bib No. 163, the 21-year-old St. Mary's College student crossed the finish line of the triathlon in Kailua-Kona on Saturday in 14 hours, 42 minutes, 25 seconds. His time placed him 1,513th out of 1,850 competitors. "It was the greatest day of my life," Boyle said by phone.

Motivation is a personal thing. Some people get involved in triathlons and marathons because they want to look or feel better, others because they can't resist the challenge, and still others because they enjoy training with a group. For the Riesz family of Ellicott City, two of whose members will be participating in Sunday's Iron Girl triathlon, the catalyst was cancer. In the spring of 1999, Charlie Riesz was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and given a 50-50 chance of survival.

Horizon Foundation awards $308,500 The Horizon Foundation has awarded $308,500 in Strategic Initiative Program (SIP) grants to local organizations and agencies. The awards are intended to stimulate improvement in the health and wellness of Howard County residents. Several grants are being made to programs supporting the healthy development of young people. One such grant, to the Korean American Community Association, is intended to help develop a culturally based program to address relationship problems between Korean youth and their parents.

As Salisbury State's Suzy McCulloch ran toward the finish line, her victory in a recent cross country race a foregone conclusion, an old acquaintance confirmed his astonishment.Dr. Charles Brown, UMBC's athletic director and youth sports coach to McCulloch's older sister, could only say, "I wish I'd known she was a runner."Until recently, she hadn't been.But McCulloch, in her second season at Salisbury, is much more than that. She's also a swimmer and a cyclist who aspires to represent the United States in the 2004 Olympics as a triathlete.

When the grand old dame of triathloning, Lyn Brooks, completes her 20th and last Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii tomorrow -- and only a volcanic eruption would prevent it -- it's not as though finishing will bring much closure.No sooner did Brooks accept the end of her annual pilgrimage to Kailua-Kona than she began working with a talented and youthful alter ego: Hollie Hollis, the former Johns Hopkins University women's cross country coach, who celebrated her 27th birthday Wednesday."I was always such a tomboy and had played every team sport available besides swimming and dirt-biking," recalled Hollis.

It was a performance an athlete dreams about, near perfection right across the board."Best thing about it," said Joanna Zeiger, "is I felt good" during most of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, held Oct. 3. "I've recovered quickly and I feel good now."Feeling good now is important because Zeiger has the U.S. Pro Triathlon Championships coming up Sunday in San Diego.So what's the rush? Why crowd another exhausting event into her already overcrowded schedule?For one thing, San Diego is where the family is, and getting back home hasn't been that easy over the last decade.

Working out with the super-fit; Coach: World-class triathlete 0) Troy Jacobson, 28, directs conditioning classes in Mount Washington for serious, competitive athletes.At first glance, Troy Jacobson is a slender, down-to-earth, unassuming 28-year-old with a handsome, dimpled face and an easygoing attitude. That's Citizen Troy. By night, though, at the Meadowbrook Aquatic and Fitness Center in Mount Washington, the 6-foot, 175-pound Jacobson becomes Coach Troy, iron-willed fitness drill sergeant.

Troy Jacobson's absence from the list of "professional" triathletes competing in tomorrow's 21st Ironman Triathlon World Championship is not an omission and Jacobson isn't waiting for any apologies.A Lutherville native, he prefers his amateur status and as long as he continues to finish among the sport's elite, as he did last year in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, Jacobson will continue to take the ultimate endurance test -- a 2.4-mile ocean swim, followed by a 112-mile bike race and a marathon."Sometimes I ask myself, 'Do you want to give everything else up to chase that dream of being the best in the world?

Mary Ellen Powers of Dover, Del., won the eighth Danskin Women's Triathlon at Gunpowder State Park yesterday, edging Joanna Zeiger of Baltimore by four seconds."

Carting her children to school, hustling from errand to errand and juggling household chores are Barbara Sullivan's daily duties. Pain is just her hobby.As an amateur triathlete, the 41-year-old mother of two from Columbia pushes her body to exhaustion through a rigid regimen of swimming, running and cycling.Competing in a sport whose participants often brag they train full time, she squeezes in workouts between her 8-year-old daughter's soccer practices, 5-year-old son's day care and other family commitments.

They came for conditioning, competition, camaraderie. They shared bloodlines, lots of sweat and more than a few tears, joyful for most who made it to the finish Sunday at Howard County's Centennial Park, painful for those who didn't. More than 2,400 women started the fourth Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon, the largest gathering of its kind, which is an event that starts with a 0.62-mile swim, continues with a 17.5-mile bike ride and concludes with a hilly, 3.4-mile run. Thousands of relatives and friends came to offer moral support.

All her life, Lee DiPietro has been running marathons. On Sunday, at age 50, she finally won one. By a landslide. "It has taken me 23 years," DiPietro, of Ruxton, said of her victory in the Marathon of the Palm Beaches (Fla.). "The first thing my husband said was, 'Did you have to wait so long to do it?' " Her response: "Trust me, it's not been for lack of trying." DiPietro's time (2 hours, 55 minutes, 41 seconds) was two minutes ahead of the pack. The win earned her $1,000 cash and a $2,500 wristwatch, and it quelled any thoughts she had of quitting the sport she took up in 1985, after the birth of her second child.

Two-thirds of the nearly 1,500 athletes who had signed up for the former Annapolis Triathlon on Sept. 7 have withdrawn since Anne Arundel County officials refused to issue permits for the 40-kilometer bicycle portion of the race. With little time left to reapply for a parade license, Jeremy Parks, a co-founder of the event, said promoters have scrapped the triathlon and switched to an "aquathon" that will include a 1.5-kilometer swim and a 10-kilometer run. "Our goal was to bring a world-class event to Annapolis, and we intend to do that with an aquathon for this year, then work with the county to create a course we can use every year," said Parks, an Annapolis developer.

About a month before last summer's Iron Girl Triathlon, Melissa Emery was beset by debilitating fatigue. She had taken part in the Columbia event's debut in August 2006, a year after turning 40 and finding herself in the throes of a midlife crisis. Completing her first swim-bike-run event proved she could handle the demanding preparation and physical exertion, so she continued to push herself. But when she started to bog down last summer, Emery wondered: "Am I training too much?" She soon learned that the training regimen wasn't the culprit.

Organizers planning to bring the Annapolis Triathlon back for a second year this September are already dealing with opposition from businesses and churches, and now they face another hitch: The county has denied them a parade license because of the bicycle portion of their race. "This is unfair, arbitrary and, frankly, baffling," organizers said in an announcement this week. They said they had submitted their application in February and had worked closely with county officials to develop their bike route.

Even after 25 years of organizing the Columbia Triathlon, Robert Vigorito gets emotional about the race. As he prepared for Sunday's event, Vigorito, 60, described what the day will be like - the waves of swimmers running down the boat ramp and into Centennial Lake starting at 6:45 a.m., the athletes, many competing for the first time, pushing themselves to achieve more than they thought possible and, finally, the triumph at the finish line. He gets tears in his eyes just thinking about it. Vigorito, president and race director of the nonprofit Columbia Triathlon Association, doesn't just talk the talk.

Bob Gralley's heart belongs to his wife, Betty, whom he has loved for 60 years. But on this day, it's a petite 29-year-old blonde who makes his heart race. Literally. Attached with tubes and straps to a monitor that will take a snapshot of his heart and lung health, Gralley runs on a treadmill, as his young trainer methodically increases the speed. Faster, faster, faster, faster, Gralley's New Balance running shoes pound the mat of the whirring machine. The trainer, Krista Schultz, had predicted Gralley's heart would max out at about 138 beats per minute, but at the end of a 12-minute run, she had logged his highest rate at 157 beats.

As she pressed the fingertips of her left hand to the small valley of flesh above her right collarbone, Donna Ebaugh recalled "the lump." A physician discovered a small mass there during a routine precamp checkup when the 16-year-old was a rising high school senior but said it wasn't anything to worry about. She attended cheerleading camp as planned, but the lump grew quickly during her stay and Ebaugh -- then Donna Davis of Babson Park, Fla. -- became frightened. A friend had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer; could she have cancer, too?

With the sound of cheers from his family and well-wishers filling his ears, Brian Boyle finished the Ford Ironman World Championship in the warm Hawaiian darkness, three years after his near-fatal car accident on a rural road in Charles County. Wearing bib No. 163, the 21-year-old St. Mary's College student crossed the finish line of the triathlon in Kailua-Kona on Saturday in 14 hours, 42 minutes, 25 seconds. His time placed him 1,513th out of 1,850 competitors. "It was the greatest day of my life," Boyle said by phone.

WELCOME -- Three years after a car accident almost crushed the life out of him, Brian Boyle's body is catching up with his spirit. Tomorrow, the St. Mary's College junior will toe the starting line with more than 1,500 triathletes to compete in the Ford Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The competition - a marathon run, a 112-mile bike ride and a 2.4-mile swim - tests the physical and mental limits of participants. But, in many ways, that's the easy part for Boyle, whose muscled torso is stitched with angry-looking scars and whose skin still releases flecks of black paint and shards of glass.