Ironman Training With Stage 4 Cancer: Jim and Kelly on Discipline, Marriage, and Kona

I have so many questions about both cancer and Ironman training, because this is you're not training for the first one. You've done these before.

My whole life. It's decades of call myself a lifelong endurance enthusiast athlete. So I've always pursued little races and they just got bigger and bigger over time. And as my son grew up and we got a little bit older and I found more time, I was I just kind of leaned more into, the longer and longer races. I just find something in it that's enjoyable for me. It's a great way to fill my time. I enjoy the suffering and the pain, as I like to say, there's joy and pain and there's meaning in the suffering. And that's where all the that's where all the good stuff happens. So you begin to seek it out.

Well, I have now I have more questions, but I want to come back to like our, our show, which is about the two of you. So you've got this, endurance, energy or passion and you get bigger and bigger races. It's got to take up more and more time. Right? And then you've got cancer, and that's got to take up a lot of your mental bandwidth and emotional space. So you got these two massive commitments whether you chose them or not. Yeah. How does that how does that play for the two of you, Kelly? How does it how do what is it like being in relationship with somebody who's committed to two other things in a really powerful way? Is that a strength? Is that a challenge? Like how would you how do you gauge that?

Absolutely. So we are both entrepreneurs. I've always had my own business and so is he. So it's something that, this is actually brought us closer to have a focus for him knowing that this is an unbelievable opportunity for him to even be a part of Iron Man Championship. I mean, you can't even get a ticket. It was crazy how that ended up. So we just focused and we do every day. On his training, his health. You know, it really kind of revolves around him. My son's very involved. He does small triathlons with Jim. Different series, you know, sprint triathlons. So it's really a family affair. And it has been even before cancer, we used to take race patience.

Okay.

We're, you know, wherever he ended up, we've been to Texas twice, Florida, Chattanooga seven, eight different times. So it's it's always been that way. He's been, you know, competing for what, 30 years. So nothing has really changed for us as far as that. Now more of the focus is just getting him to Kona. So between now and October 10th, that's our main focus. So whatever we can do to support him, you know, make sure he's got protein in the house, protein shakes, you know, but I think it's actually brought us closer.

Okay.

You know, because I'm, I'm in real estate at a high level. I was compliance officer for the state of Georgia. So I had, you know, 85, agents that I managed besides doing my own business. So, you know, with, with the training and everything that that he's been doing, it just it's something we're so used to. It's not anything new. Yeah.

I think it takes away like, I, I do a lot of training, but we both kind of work out of the house. And it's kind of funny because I decided to retire from home inspection after 30 years. And I told Kelly I was like, I need more time to do these things that I want to do. And as it turns out, you still only get 24 hours in a day. So I didn't get more time and didn't work out. But I'm busier now than I've ever been. But I'm home all the time at the same time. And when it comes to cancer, I pretty much ignore it. I don't, I don't focus on it. I try not to think about it. I let the doctors worry about that.

Well, I guess I'm thinking about and maybe you're tapping into something that, That I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm thinking about how all of these things take up so much time. Maybe that's not the space that the two of you use to connect time hours in the day. Maybe it's more of a spiritual connection, or maybe it's more of a missional connection or something. Because I know there's people out there going, wait, you don't like, how do you well, what do you do? How do you do together?

How do you. I mean, like for just to give you a for instance, today's training is is two hours. It was an hour of running this morning, an hour of swimming later. So it's not like it takes up the whole day. There are some days that that are longer than others. Yeah, but it's not as time consuming as you would think.

Especially like when I had a full time job. Yeah, that was different. Yeah. Because then the limited time that you have it, you know, that's a it's a problem in the Ironman world. It destroys a lot of relationships. Yeah. And it's a common thing in the Ironman world. But since I retired, you know, my focus has been narrowed to train for the, you know, arrive alive in Kona with enough fitness to finish in under 17 hours, promote the book that I wrote then, and raise money for the Ironman Foundation, which the profits from the book go to the Iron Man Foundation until we reach that fundraising goal.

So this is what gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It gives me a purpose, meaning a reason to live as opposed to thinking about dying all the time, which I don't do. Once I stop worrying about dying, then I can really focus on how I want to spend the time I have left. And Kelly's on board 100%, just as I would be for her if it was the she was on the other foot.

It's it's also like today, for instance, if he goes for a swim, I've been going down taking my lawn chair and getting some sun.

Yeah.

You know, some with them. And then also the tour de France is on tour de France and we love it. We've watched it for 30 years. So it's it's something that after our work training, then we'll sit and watch it and it's five hours.

Yeah, yeah.

You know.

For the Iron Man training because we spend an enormous amount of time together, so much so that sometimes it's nice to have a little, a little time of your own. So they are really, you know, and even the cancer treatments, you know, I just started I just did my 25th round of chemo on Monday and, you know, it's a couple hours at the chemo center. But other than that, I go about my life. I've become accustomed to the side effects and, and, you know, things that come along with it. So, you know, I just got used to living with it, and I've gotten better and better at it. The first six months were pretty hard, and but after that I kind of adjusted. So now I'm a savvy old veteran.

And he he does really good with chemo. Surprisingly, he's never been sick as far as, really being ill. There are times where he's extremely tired, you know, and, but he's really handled chemo very well. Yeah. So we're very lucky there.

So two choices when the, when the, when you're, you know, your lifespan is suddenly shortened. Yeah. You can, you can, you can go into despair and depression. Or in my case, I hit the gas. I'm like, I've got a short amount of time. There's a bunch of stuff I want to do. Yeah. And mostly I'm just living a life of service now. Charity. I wrote the book, hopefully to help people as I entered the cancer. While they saw a lot of despair, a lot of depression. Yeah, lot of hopelessness. And I thought the book could lift some people up. And so far I've gotten some good reviews and the books doing pretty well. So that also gave me 13 months or so to focus on something other than cancer.

Yeah, and I wrote the book to help other people, but it ended up being therapy for me because I took my whole life and my philosophies and, and my, my approaches and put it into a book which was a, you know, organized beginning, middle and and it it was a it was really a wonderful experience for me, having never written anything or been any kind of an author previously, I'm pretty proud of the work that I put out.

So I love that I just finished a book of my own, and I don't know if you had this experience, but, the guy who started writing the book last October is not the guy who finished writing the book in September, in May? I guess so, it's a transformative, like the writing is a transformative process. When I think about it. I guess what I would want to know is, I hear you talk about cancer, and I hear how amazing your your sort of personality or maybe your approach is, do you think people who don't have the same kind of hardwiring as you can achieve the same relationship with cancer, say, ignore it or let the doctors do it? Like how do you how would you tell them to do that?

Optimism is a choice and it's not. I think some people are born more optimistic than others. I definitely am, but it's something you can work on. It's kind of like a muscle, like discipline is you don't just have discipline and then you're done. It's something you have to refresh and renew on a daily basis and work at it. So I'm, you know, the guy you're looking at today is not the guy that got diagnosed in the first week of April 2024. I was devastated. It took me some time to come to these realizations, and the realization that I came to is that cancer is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It's also the best thing that's ever happened to me.

So many things have happened in the last two and a half to 27 months that I'm happy about. I'm happier now doing what I'm doing now than I ever have been. The relationships are better and deeper and, you know, when I die, there'll be no there'll be no questions. You know, because I will have had all those conversations with all the people that matter the most. And that's the realization that I came to, is that it's really the only thing that matters is your relationships. The people you spend your time with. Everything else is just a game monopoly, you know, houses, cars, business. It's yeah, you know, you you can't take it with you when you go. So the other thing that I thought was kind of funny is, you know, the doctor had told me I was terminal and I didn't like that word.

Yeah. It's defined as the end. Here we are 27 months later. It wasn't the end. It was the beginning. It was the beginning of so many things. And I think the essence of life, the key to life, is to take tragedy and turn it into triumph, to figure out a way, no matter what happens, find the meaning and it, find the lessons in it, learn from it, and then go share it with other people. And that's why I'm so happy right now. And I wouldn't trade my cancer diagnosis to go back to the way I was, because as I look back, I was living a life of complacency, having achieved some success. I just wasn't utilizing my potential, my God given gifts to my fullest. So I'm happy for many, many reasons. And, you know, I don't worry about cancer.

I like cancer, do whatever it wants to do. As I told Kelly, cancer has my body and there's nothing I can do about that. I'll do what the doctors tell me to. But cancer can't have my heart because they gave that to Kelly. Cancer can't have my mind because it belongs to me. And cancer can't have my soul because I gave that to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So heart, mind and soul against cancer. So far I'm winning.

Right on. And Kelly, you're you're nodding. You're like yep that I by I'm bought in I'm I'm, I'm I'm more with this process.

Yeah. So a little different for us I think is Jim was already a triathlete. He was already an Iron man for 30 years. So he was used to, you know, starting January and looking at the whole calendar and putting in his ten events that he ran every year. So when he got diagnosed, that's exactly what he did a few weeks later is he got on, you know, the computer and set up all of his races that he does throughout the whole year. And it's it was I think it's good therapy for him that instead of focusing on the cancer, he's focusing on himself and what what's normal. I think that's the the the main goal when you have cancer is the normalcy in your life is to keep keep it normal.

And you don't want people to treat you differently. Yeah, it's a weird thing. You get cancer and some people, you know, they just don't know how to talk to you anymore. Like, like something different happened. It's like it's not contagious. You don't have to worry about that. You know what I mean?

His oncologist told us that. And keep it as normal as possible. You know, he had a business for 30 years, you know, very, very, very.

I worked that for a little while longer. Yeah. Again, just to kind of keep the normalcy. But then at some point I realized, I don't want to do that anymore. I did it for 30 years. I did 15,000 inspections. I think I did enough, you know, and now I'm on this other path. You know, like I said, writing the book was, was was real therapy for me. And now sharing it with people has been fantastic as well. So, you know, I'm doing these podcasts all over the place, and I'm speaking publicly around town at Rotary Clubs and other things and, you know, raising money for the Ironman Foundation, which is the charitable wing of the Iron Man. They were kind enough to let me into their race, which is super hard to get into.

The world championship in the birthplace of Iron Man is Kona, Hawaii. 2500 athletes to a half of women and 10% of prose. So you know about 1150 men from around the world trying to get into this thing. So it's an honor. And and, I'm, I'm thrilled to even have the opportunity. When I was invited July of 25, I didn't even know if I'd be alive. And now, here we are. No evidence of disease. 95 days away. It looks like I'll at least arrive alive. We'll see if I have the fitness. Because the hardest part with the working out and the training is recovery. I can do the workouts.

Yeah.

Recovery is another, another thing. So I just had eight weeks off of chemo, thank God. Just had my most recent surgery for weeks ago, and I'm fully recovered from that. So, it's all all systems go.

So here we go.

Yeah, yeah. And then everybody's on board. Like I said, Kelly's on board. There's these things that brought us closer together. Over 30 years we've been through everything that a 30 year marriage can be through. And I developed another thought through this process is, I think on in a relationship, in a marriage, and I don't know how we got where we got. We never thought about it. We just kind of made our way through. But looking back on it, I think people fall deeply in love at first, and then you fall widely in love over time. Over time, if you build that wide base, nothing can knock it over. But in the in the beginning, when you're only five years in and the love is deep but not wide, it's easy to for people to walk away or for it to be destroyed.

We're so deep into this now. The base, the foundation is so wide and so solid that there's nothing that could come between us at this point. And that's been another great gift that cancer gave me, was the opportunity to remind my wife how much I love her, how special she is. I said, well, I think I joke about is I, I wake her up every morning now and remind her how lucky she is to be married to me.

Let me ask you about let me ask you about two sort of metaphors that have to do with this idea of, like a marriage and an endurance, but like, do you think about marriage as an endurance sport? Like, you know, people will say marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. Like, how do you do you have your own point of view on that?

Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely a marathon. And if anyone who's been married for a very long time will know that, you know, the honeymoon wears off. It's not all good times. It's not all fun times. And and I think true love is tested in, in the in the valleys, not the peaks. Absolutely. And we've been through several valleys and we've gotten through each one. There's been times where we've drifted apart for various reasons, whether it's business or training or children or we have one son, or any number of things, but but we always come back together, as I said, with nothing, that we would be a good communication as well. We're also very compatible. We're good friends, and.

We actually like each other.

Yeah, it helps complete.

Completely different. Completely different on on a lot of levels. Like, Kelly's approach to things is different than mine, but somehow it works together.

So is there some like, core endurance sport principle that you would bring right over into a marriage space? Like, I don't know, something about hitting the wall or I don't, I don't know, like, is it but as you think about, like, the direct line between training for an endurance support or being an iron man is a metaphor for marriage in this way.

I would say that in that case, there would be the discipline that I apply to training in the thing that I think the sin that I committed, or the mistake that I made over time was complacency. And it's easy to become complacent in many ways, whether it's your your life, your purse or your business. But in your relationship after 30 years, maybe you you don't do the things you once did or say the things you once said. I'm a pretty good communicator. We have pretty good communication, and we've always had a clean slate philosophy. So if there's an issue that we have, the first thing I do is look to see what I did to create it and if there's anything I can do to fix it. So I look at myself first. But then beyond that, once we resolve the issue, it's a clean slate.

We don't go back to it, we fix it and move on. And you don't get to come back a month later and revisit. So okay, difficult philosophy, easy to understand, difficult to employ. You know, especially in the case of, you know, something like infidelity, which we don't have that issue. But but to forgive is one thing, to forget is another.

If you're going to forgive somebody, you also have to forget and start over fresh and give them that opportunity. Give yourself that opportunity to be happy, you know, because if you're carrying around all that stuff, you know, it's going to come out eventually. So right on the discipline that I applied in training is something that I probably should have been better at in the relationship because I think just like this, when relationships require daily renewal to keep things, to keep things right, because you drift a little bit each day, and one day you wake up and you're so far apart you don't even know who the other person is.

So, yeah, fortunately, we don't have traveling jobs. So like I said, throughout our 30 years, we spend an enormous amount of time together. We're both in the real estate business. So I'll go to her sales meetings. And all of her people know me and all my people know her, so.

But you're retired.

You you know, now I have more time. Yeah. Yeah. I used to say, people I said I work 25, seven and people would say, how do you do that? I was like, what? I'll let you in on. The secret is I don't take lunch. So I get that extra hour every day.

Okay, here's my second like, little metaphor question. I have this theory that there's a difference between training to race and racing to train. Do you do you stay in a position of like, I'm healthy so that if a race comes up, I'm compete? Or do you pick a race and go, that's the thing I'm training for. That's my target. And those are different. Those are different ways of being on the planet. I'm wondering if you two are the same or you're different or how you think about that.

We're so different in this area because I'm more of the I said in January, I set up my year, I picked ten races and everything I do revolves around that. So I have to answer that question. There's a difference. And working out I right? Yeah. The difference between working out and training. Training has a purpose. Every session I do is a building block for a larger goal. Okay. Whereas if someone goes to the gym and works out, just, you know, does whatever they want. Yeah, it's good fitness, but you're not working towards something. So training I train to race and the race is the is the is the coronation for the training. So one of the questions I've been asked frequently throughout my decades is why you do Ironman never really had a good answer until cancer, and it used to be about the finish line.

That's the whole thing was the finish line. Once I got cancer, it became about the start line. I just wanted to get to the start line and get one more shot. And then I realized after writing the book that it's much deeper than that. If you have a ten month training program with four weeks in a month, that's 40 weeks and ten training sessions a week. That's 400 training sessions. So you have ten months, 40 weeks, 400 training sessions that lead up to one day of racing. Are you telling me that that one day is more important than the ten months? The ten months is what it's about. It's the day to day discipline. It's just kind of how I live my life. Kelly's more artistic, where she's more of a creative butterfly, so she doesn't necessarily have to schedule things or put things on the calendar like I do.

I have this, it's just in me that I'm always chasing after something, whatever it is, and a little bit of an extreme personality.

So a little.

Bit when I, when I decided to write a book, I mean, I'd never.

Written.

It, I'd never written a book, and I had no idea how to get to Kona. Almost on my deathbed, I went to Kelly and said, I'm going to write a book and I'm going to go to Kona. And sure enough, both things are happening. So once I decided to write the book, I was all in for 13 months. And that's kind of how I am. I know that could be difficult to live with.

Are you like, hang on, cancer? I'm not done with this thing. I'll let you know when I finish the book. I feel like I'm out running. Yeah.

I feel like I'm not running. Cancer. Cancer. Slow. Can't catch me.

Hold my beer.

Yeah.

Hold my beer.

I had noticed in your bio, you. And you mentioned Dan happily married for 23 out of 24 years. I always joked that I've been happily married for 30 years, and Kelly's been happily married for 25.

Yeah.

Because of my extreme nature, once I get locked on something, I really have trouble letting off of it. I go all in, even if it's not necessarily, you know, going to work out for the better. So, but that's my nature. So.

But I think we we both came into this marriage. We were a little older, and I had already been on my own in my own business. Jim was in his own business. So we came into this marriage 100% and 100%. So we're. Yes, severely, severely independent to to to a degree. But that's why it works out for us. Because it's not like there's anything that, I don't know, some marriages, it's like, if he wants to do something, I've never told him, no, you can't do it or I'm not going to let you do it.

You don't have a lot of jealousy.

It's always.

I always say it was love at first sight. When I met Kelly, we just kind of came together. Like when you put the two magnets in the right direction and they clicked together.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was on from the beginning. There was no there was no question about it. We each felt the same way. And, you know, it's been a pleasure. I said, I spent half my life with with Kelly. And when I look back, I'm pretty proud of everything that we've done together and everything that we got through together. And then here we are with the greatest challenge, which, you know, in the beginning, we're all talking about how Jim's going to die or whatever. I don't feel like I'm going to die. And here's the bad news for you and for you, Kelly, I'm going to let you both know today. You're you're terminal as well.

Yes, absolutely. We are.

You're going to die. We don't know when or why, but it's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. So the doctor told me your terminal, I walked out, I said, well, I was terrible before I went in, so there's no news there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I also think there's something my my father passed away 20 years ago this year of a massive heart attack in our family kitchen right in front of my mom.

Jeez.

Drop dead.

That's death. And for years, those 20 years ago and for years, I told Jim. That's the way I want to go. No suffering. Just get it done. Right. And now, when he had, you know, gotten his cancer diagnosis, it's just been so much better because we've had I don't want to say like the long goodbye. It's whatever, but it is. But we've also been able to as a family. My son, you know, the three of us, we've just gotten so close.

Everything's better. Everything better. Cheeseburgers, things better.

And there's nothing left and nothing left unsaid.

Yes. Nothing left unsaid. That then I would do my own. My own.

We're going to have a party for him.

I was going to be at my own funeral and doing my own eulogy.

That's awesome.

Free to have something before. Before it happens with all.

When you say it to me before I die. So. But yeah, I don't feel like I'm. I'm close to die. And I even think about it. Yeah. Right on.

So that's cool. All right. Well, I've really enjoyed talking to you. I got a ton of questions still that are just brewing around in my head that I will be thinking about, but we're gonna bump up against our time. Tell us about your book and about how to learn more about what you've got going on and how to support your causes. Yeah.

The book is titled Just Keep Trying to I hyphen ING the play on words for triathlon and the theme it goes beyond cancer. Regardless of what you're going through, if you just keep trying, you'll be surprised. But you can accomplish. You know, and it's never too late to start doing something. And just because you have a terminal diagnosis doesn't mean you can't live a rich, meaningful, purposeful life. And all those lessons are in the book, and I hope that people are inspired and motivated by it. I know it inspired and motivated me, and I hope it's on Amazon. It's an easy read. It's, you know, not hard to read. So but a lot of people that have read it have reviewed it really nicely. So and you can follow me on Instagram.

Stage four 2025 the number 42025. Stage 4202025 and follow me to the Iron Man in Kona. October 10th, 2026. The profits from the book, by the way, go to the Iron Man Foundation. I've agreed to attempt to raise $100,000. I'm up to about 25,000. So the profits from the book will go directly to the foundation. And it just feels good to be doing all these things at this point in my life with my beautiful wife.

I love it. Kelly, what do you think? You got some parting words for us? What? How do we. How would you put a tie bow on this?

I would say just keep the faith. Stay close to each other. Do everything together and, enjoy your time that you have.

Yeah.

If time this precious.

For most of us, it will eventually. You know, parents die, things happen. Tragedy comes to everybody. Suffering and pain will visit you at some point. Yeah. So be prepared.

And, yeah, time is precious. So we've learned that.

Right on. Well, thank you so much for talking to me. I look forward to following your journey to Kona in October. I'm going to make that a priority, and then I'll look forward to checking in with you along the way. Yeah. Thanks again.

Thanks for your time. Thank you. On.