Part I – When You Don’t Dream, You Die
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Part II – Team Boyle: Far Beyond Driven
Triathletes talk about the years of training it takes to handle the Ironman. One might naturally think they mean the necessary physical shape to survive the grueling event. And, in that case, one wonders how Brian Boyle, with only 6 weeks of training, even survived the Ironman World Championship, let alone finished.
However, the pros aren’t talking about physical fitness. They mean it took years to develop a push-through-the-pain, never-say-die kind of attitude. The kind of discipline that allows an athlete with a pulled hamstring to bike 112 miles against staggering headwinds, skin frying in the south pacific sun, then jog 26.2 miles with a smile on his face, thanking anyone within a two foot radius and thinking this is the best day of his life.
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| Boyle’s Ironman Championship medal & ring. |
Brian Boyle, 21, of Welcome, Maryland, has that kind of attitude and discipline in spades. His parents say he’s always been positive, never one to give up without a struggle. But, Boyle’s struggle to recover after his accident intensified and refined his mental discipline to a level that takes others years to achieve. With that understanding and a knowledge of the role his parents, Garth & JoAnne Boyle, played in Brian’s recovery, it’s easy to see why Boyle’s racewear reads “Team Boyle” in large red letters.
“It wasn’t just me doing [the race]. I couldn’t have crossed the finish-line without them,” Boyle said. “They made it all worthwhile. It was our journey.”
JoAnne Boyle said that the accident and its aftermath were so awful, so emotionally exhausting that neither she nor her husband had the heart left to really enjoy life. However, watching Brian cross the finish-line looking as great as he did, “healed all the rips and tears in our hearts,” said Garth Boyle.
“It gave us life [again],” JoAnne told The Bay Net. “He’s not just our child anymore; he’s our hero.”
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To Walk Again, Proving Everyone Wrong
In September 2004, Brian lay in his hospital bed unable to move, eat or speak, feeling useless and hopeless. He’d come out of his coma, but his parents still didn’t know if he’d live. JoAnne says that at one point, Garth used a variety of colorful language to bawl-out his son for giving up. After his dad left the room to calm down, Brian began moving a finger, the start of his commitment to recovery.
When he’d recovered enough to leave Prince George’s Hospital ICU, Boyle spent an agonizing month at the Kernan Hosp
