By FRED CONLEY and DONNA STEPHENS
T-H & Log Cabin Democrat
E. J. Chauvin used to run the Forrest City Mightymite Triathlon on a regular basis.
Back then he wasn't too serious about winning the event.
"I did it for the fun," Chauvin said. He has continued to run triathlons and half triathlons on a regular basis -- with some success.
In less than two weeks, Chauvin, 42, will be leaving for Kona, Hawaii to compete in the Ironman World Championship Triathlon.
Chauvin will compete in the men's 40-44 division. He was one of 150 Americans --and the only Arkansan -- chosen in the Ironman lottery held last spring.
"I've been in the lottery for probably seven years in a row," said Chauvin, a Conway heart surgeon. "They let me know in April I had been chosen, but you have to go out and prove to them you can do it."
He finished a half-Ironman in Lubbock, Texas, on June 30 to assure his berth in the big event, which will draw about 1,500 triathletes.
The Ironman Triathlon World Championship is one of the most in-demand athletic events in the world. Qualifying gets more difficult each year, so the lottery was instituted.
"Over the years, they've tried to keep 200 everyday people in the race," Chauvin said. "Fifty are picked from outside the U.S. and 150 from within. I just happened to be one of the 150."
The Ironman, set for Oct. 19, includes a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and a marathon (26.2 miles). All three must be completed within a 17 hour time limit.
Chauvin said his training is going okay, although he says his weakest portion of the triathlon will be the bike ride.
"I did an 80-mile ride Sunday," Chauvin said. "The bike will still be toughest part. The swim is the best part and the run is okay"
Chauvin is realistic. "I just want to finish the triathlon in the time limit given," Chauvin added. "That's my goal. I'm not serious about winning it."
The Hawaii course is hilly and windy and runs along the ocean with very strong head winds and cross winds capable of "knocking people off the bikes," Chauvin said. "That concerns me."
He said he competes in several triathlons each year, but those distances are much smaller: about a mile swim, 24-mile bike ride and 10K run.
Before Chauvin might have gone 20 or 30 miles a week on the bike, six or eight miles for the run and a couple of miles a week for the swim, now his long runs are 15 miles, his bike rides are up to 80 miles and his swims are two miles a day -- several days in a row.
While he has been training hard in Conway, he said it is almost impossible to recreate the conditions he will be facing on race day. And being a doctor, he has to arrange his training time around his patient and surgery schedule
Chauvin, whose parents, Ed and Mamie Jo still live in Forrest City, attended school here until the eighth grade when he transferred to Subiaco Academy.
At Forrest City, he said he wasn't very athletic, but played some youth baseball and then played baseball and rugby while attending Tulane.
"My dad was surprised that I had been picked for the Ironman. He didn't believe it," Chauvin said. "When I finished the half triathlon in Texas, dad got excited. My parents aren't athletic. I think my mom tried to ride a bike once but she fell off and never got back on one."
Chauvin's family and his parents will all make the trip to Hawaii.
"The biggest reason I've been planning on trying the Ironman was to show myself I could do it," Chauvin said. "I want to show my patients if I can do this, they can do the things they want to do."
The Ironman began in 1978 as a debate among swimmers, runners and other athletes about who was more fit.
Navy commander John Collins proposed combining three existing races, to be completed in succession: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (112 miles, originally a two-day event) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles).
Collins reportedly said "Whoever finishes first will be the person we'll call the Ironman."
Fifteen men participated in the initial event.
It has now grown in participation, exposure and prize money.
Chauvin didn't become a triathlete until his residency at Cleveland, Ohio, in the late 1980s.
He said he got involved on a bet.
One of his bosses' sons was a professional triathlete, and when a big race came to Cleveland, Chauvin remarked that it "seemed kind of neat."
His boss told him he ought to try it, so he borrowed a bike and jumped in.
He was quickly hooked.
"I barely made it," he said. "Then I went and bought my own bike and I did it pretty regularly those four years."
Then he hit a rather dry spell.
"When I was doing my heart training (in Augusta, Ga.), I didn't do any triathlons at all."
But when he took his first post-graduate job in Memphis, his nurse happened to be an avid triathlete, and she and her husband got him involved in the sport again, he said.
That was in 1994, and he's been pretty steady ever since, running the Mightymite from 1995 through 2000.
"In medical school there were some friends of mine who were big runners, so I started running with them," said Chauvin. "That was my first taste of doing something like that."
He said he trains almost year-round.
"Obviously, it gets more intense when it gets warmer," he said. "I usually bike or run in the morning, do the other in the evening and during the day I sneak out and swim a couple of miles."
Chauvin moved his family to Conway a little more than a year ago.
"My kids are looking forward to the trip because they will miss a week of school," he said.
However he finishes, he will always be able to say he was an "Ironman" for a day.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The Palestine-Wheatley Junior Patriots and Hughes Junior Blue Devils will hook up tonight on the football field for the first time in conference action.
The game, scheduled for a 6 p.m. kick off, will be played at Wheatley.
The Junior Patriots are 1-3 coming in while the Junior Blue Devils are 3-1.
"We think, by watching them on film, that we can use the size of our line to control the football," said P-W Coach Dan Cockrell. "Our size is a positive for us."
On the other side of the coin is the weather factor.
It is going to be wet.
The two schools will play a seventh-grade game at 5 p.m.
And in an unusual move, the Palestine-Wheatley Patriots, who picked up their first victory of the season last Friday against Rector, will practice at 8:30 p.m. tonight following the junior high varsity game.
The senior Patriots will host Walnut Ridge Friday night.
Cockrell will be calling the plays with P-W Coach Terry Farmer sitting out a mandatory game after being ejected from last week's game.
* LOCAL SPORTS
MEN'S FALL SOFTBALL
Thursday, October 3
Marion Performance vs Wynne, 6 p.m.
M&T Paving vs Young Guns, 7 p.m.
Miller Insurance vs Section 8 Youth, 8 p.m.
Barnes Timber vs Gym 2000, 9 p.m.
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
Friday, October 4
AAAAA-East
Searcy at Forrest City
Blytheville at Mountain Home
Cabot at West Memphis
Jonesboro at Jacksonville
3AA Conference
Rector at Turrell
Parkin at Earle
Hughes at Salem
Marked Tree at Cross County
Walnut Ridge at Palestine-Wheatley
JUNIOR HIGH FOOTBALL
Thursday, October 3
Forrest City Blue - Open
Forrest City White at JB Annie Camp, 7 p.m.
Hughes at Palestine-Wheatley, 6 p.m.
YOUTH SOCCER
Thursday, October 3
Bullets vs Sting (9-under), 6 p.m.
Flames vs Thrashers (10-13), 6 p.m.
Tigers vs Rockets (9-under), 7:15 p.m.
Grizzlies vs Iguanas (10-13), 7:15 p.m.