http://www.newsday.com/news/health/dominick-oliviero-fellow-liers-prep-for-ironman-world-championship-1.9476054
Note: This is the first of a five-day 2014 GoPro Ironman World
Championship series. Follow Newsday.com from Oct. 8 through Oct. 12 for
up-to-date coverage, including a live feed on Oct. 11 from the race in
Hawaii.
When Dominick
Oliviero enters the crystal-clear waters of Kailua Bay for the start of
the 2014 GoPro Ironman World Championship, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, there
will be more on his mind than just completing what’s arguably the
world’s toughest single-day sporting event. It will be difficult for
Oliviero not to think back to three years ago.
In May 2011, Oliviero
said, he was diagnosed with stage four nasopharyngeal cancer, nearly 10
years after his brother, Maurice, died from lymphoma.
Oliviero said he was treated at Manhattan’s Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where he underwent four rounds of
chemotherapy, 33 rounds of radiation with chemotherapy, followed by an
additional 20 rounds of radiation. He said his final chemo-radiation
regimen was in January 2012.
Oliviero, 49, of
Massapequa, who will be running his first world championship, credits
his training regimen with helping his body fight the disease and endure
the treatment.
“I had just run the
Boston [Marathon] and was training for Ironman Lake Placid,” he said.
“The chemo-radiation protocol was grueling. The doctors said that
because of the physical and mental state I was in, I was able to endure
the treatment, which led to a successful outcome.”
After the death of
his brother, Oliviero said he received a pamphlet from Team in Training
-- a fundraising arm of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society that trains
athletes for charity -- and signed up for his first triathlon.
“I was hooked,” he
said. “It led to 10 marathons -- including New York City and Boston --
five Ironman races and many endurance races. I believe that I am here
today because of my brother.”
In order to prepare
for the Ironman World Championship’s 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and
26.2-mile marathon -- all done in succession, with a 17-hour time cutoff
-- Oliviero has been pushing his body to the extreme. His weekly
training consists of three runs (one long, one tempo, one easy), two to
three days swimming (pool and open water), three days biking (one
interval, one long, one easy) and one to two days of strength training.
“I have been training since June,” he said.
Oliviero will be
joined on the Big Island of Hawaii by Long Islanders Steven Gartenstein,
50, of Hewlett Harbor; Stefan Judex, 46, of Port Jefferson; Liz
Fernandez, 35, of Rockville Centre; and Roberta Leventhal, 63, of East
Hills. Also qualified for the world championship is Karen Dayan, who
lives in Lake Placid and Delray Beach, Florida., but is coached by Long
Island Tri Coach.
“I was always a
runner, then I got into biking and swimming, and doing triathlons was a
natural progression,” said Gartenstein, who credits his racing
motivation to his son who was diagnosed with severe autism. “Going to
Kona to compete in an Ironman has been a dream of mine since before I
ever got into triathlon.”
Fernandez said she’s been training since January and has logged more than 600 hours, averaging 15-17 hours per week.
“I’ve grown to
embrace tapers and days off,” she said. “Since qualifying for the world
championship, it has been about properly recovering and maintaining my
fitness. My coach and I monitor my stress scores and performance charts,
so I stay fresh, maintained and don’t become overtrained, and burned
out.”
Leventhal took a bit
of a different approach to her training, opting to train alone. Even
though it’s lonely, she says, “it’s easier to stick with a training
plan,” such as run pacing and intervals.
Judex, who has been
competing in triathlons for more than 30 years and participated in more
than 100 races, qualified for this year’s world championship.
“I had not planned on
doing another Ironman until age 50,” said Judex, who also has family
living on the Big Island. “I would rather spend more time with the kids
as they are growing up. [But] I somewhat accidentally qualified for Kona
this year. My family convinced me we should go.”
Each year, the
Ironman World Championship combines 2,000-plus of the world’s most elite
professional and amateur triathletes in 140.6 miles of brutal currents,
hills, crosswinds and heat. In what could be the most difficult
single-day sporting event on the planet, the Ironman World Championship
requires competitors to qualify through yearly worldwide full- or
half-distance Ironman races, or by lottery or legacy.
“My goal is to enjoy
every minute of the Ironman World Championship,” Oliviero said. “I’ve
been watching the telecast of the race since the early 1980s, so to
actually be there and racing in it will be a dream come true.”
In addition to
Brian T. Dessart’s live Twitter updates on Newsday.com, the 2014 Ironman
World Championship can be viewed on www.ironman.com. NBC will air the
event special on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 1:30 p.m.