Inspired at Ironman: Three unique athletes share stories leading up to race

KAILUA-KONA — Some time Saturday evening, after the sun sets on Alii Drive, Jeff Agar will stop cold in his tracks, so close to the end he’ll almost be able to taste it.

Then his son Johnny will hoist himself out of the jogging chariot harnessed to his father and march 1.2 miles across the finish line to perhaps the six most deserved words spoken throughout the entire race.

“Johnny Agar, you are an Ironman!”

The sports management student at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has carried a 4.0 throughout his academic career, has spent every day during the last 22 years overcoming the physical limitations thrust upon him by cerebral palsy — a condition that impairs his muscle coordination.

But before Johnny graduates to a front office job with a professional sports organization — perhaps even as a member of his favorite baseball team, the Detroit Tigers — he’s got a few personal athletic goals he’d like to accomplish.

At the top of that list is finishing the Ironman World Championship alongside his father, Jeff, as the two entered the race through the physically challenged open exhibition and will compete in tandem.

An avid sports fan, Johnny has long desired to connect with his father through athletics, and the chance to do so in Kailua-Kona at Ironman is deeply meaningful to him.

“We’ve been (racing together) for seven years, and it’s been a wonderful bonding experience for the two of us,” Johnny said. “It’s given us something we have in common now as athletes, so it’s been awesome. For him to be able to train for this Ironman with me … it kind of shows me in a physical way that anything is possible.”

Father will have son in tow behind him in a rubber dinghy as the two make their way through 2.4 miles of open ocean to start the triathlon. Johnny will be there to navigate, he said, making sure his old man stays true to course.

The two will then transition to a carriage connected to Jeff at the waist for the 112 mile bike ride. The carriage will later transform into a chariot for 25 miles of the 26.2 mile run.

At that point, Jeff will step aside and pass the baton to his son, who will carry the team home on his own two feet.

“I’m very excited because, like I said before, Dad has always taught me that anything is possible, and he’s the best motor in the world,” Johnny said. “I’m going to go the last 1.2 just to show him how much I appreciate him.”

The duo’s journey to Hawaii and Ironman started when Johnny was just 15, after he joined an organization that involves disabled individuals in races.

And once the young competitor got a taste of the action, there was no returning to the sidelines.

“Johnny had never participated in sports of any kind and got involved with ‘My Team Triumph’ and just loved it. At the time, I’d never run more than two miles in my life, and I thought endurance running was one of the stupidest things you could waste your time on,” Jeff joked. “But Johnny absolutely loved it.”

The first race they competed in was a 5K, in which a then 46-year-old Jeff said he had to gut out the finish just to avoid being eclipsed by a 70-year-old power walker. After that, he decided more training was necessary. Several races and seven years later, the two have graduated from a 5-kilometer run to a 140.6 mile gauntlet.

And neither could be happier.

“It’s an improbable situation for us to be here,” Jeff said. “I would have guaranteed my life against it seven years ago, but (sure) enough, here we are.”

The event and accompanying trip has been a family affair for the Agars, who are visiting Hawaii for the first time. The whole family is thoroughly enjoying the experience, even if it is under circumstances they could never have fathomed when dreaming on a vacation in a tropical paradise.

“Mom has always wanted to go to Hawaii, but she wasn’t expecting that she’d be nervous the first time she came here,” Johnny laughed.

But if all goes to plan, those nerves will melt away, leaving behind only pride as she watches her son complete a tremendous feat — one that her husband helped to start — all to a chorus of those six special, anxiously anticipated words.

“Johnny Agar, you are an Ironman!”

Breaking down barriers

Shirin Gerami doesn’t cover herself in traditional Iranian fashion in her personal life, which is centered in the United Kingdom where she has long made her home.

But she will adhere to her birth country’s customs Saturday when she becomes the first female athlete from Iran to compete in the Ironman World Championship.

“There are rules and regulations in Iran that deal with women needing to cover up, but for me, it’s not so much about the clothes, whether you should or should not wear them,” Gerami explained. “It’s that if someone wants to wear them, then that should be an option. If someone wants to do triathlons, the barrier to entry shouldn’t be because they’re not comfortable wearing normal (triathlete) clothing.

“I am doing this to respect the rules and regulations of Iran.”

Gerami has worked with Ironman to strike a balance between the race’s rules and the cultural modesty required of women in Iran, where she was born and where she lived between the ages of 10 and 15.

Now in her late 20s, Gerami has been paving the way for Middle Eastern females in the sport of triathlon for nearly a half decade.

Upon completing the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final London in September of 2013, Gerami received a congratulatory tweet from Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani.

“Shirin Gerami, 1st female triathlete to have participated in world championship wearing Iran’s colours #GenderEquality,” he wrote.

Gerami said everything she does is about sharing an activity she loves with others who perhaps haven’t been as fortunate to have found it, let alone gain access to it.

“For me, it was a realization that had I been a girl who had continued to live in Iran after the age of 15, I would have never even discovered triathlons because they simply didn’t exist, particularly for women,” she said. “It’s a journey of trying to share what I love with people who can’t currently access it.”