Inspiration In A Word Describes Ironman Athlete

By Nancy Peters

Athletes who participate in any sport spend an unusual number of hours dedicating their time to training. They concentrate on their nutrition to stay fit with the proper number of calorie intake and to eat only the proteins and carbohydrates that will contribute to keeping them trim while allowing the training to bring them up to speed. The sport can be any one -- baseball, football, tennis, swimming, running, bicycling, even archery – training is imperative to participate to the maximum and succeed.

Imagine, as a young man you are a star on your Little League team, a right-hand pitcher, the All-Star; you also play football as a 12 year old with your father as your role model, a man who was a college football star who could have been a pro. You have your whole world ahead of you. You are so good at athletics, your father is grooming you to be a professional athlete someday, either in baseball or football and you are pressured to succeed, not that you yet mind the pressure.

You are focused. You are not given opportunities to play with friends after school or after practices. You are an athlete who must save his athleticism for the big leagues. You live with your father, a man who works in real estate but was also had a passion for cartoon art ), and you have no contact with a mother who birthed you and a half-brother, but abandoned you both and lost custody and visitation rights.

Jason Lester grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He was only three years old when he and his older brother, Quinton, then eight years old, were left in a trailer by a mother with addiction problems. Jason was a ward of the state until his biological father won the right to raise his only son.

Charles Joseph Lester was proud of his winning son. His boy was a born athlete and the elder Lester hoped to live vicariously through his son’s professional sports success when the time came. Jason was a good son and he was developing just as the world came crashing in, literally.

It was Halloween night in a neighborhood where Jason and his Dad lived. Jason was coming home from trick – or – treating while riding his bike. It was dusk. The driver was 18 years old, driving without her prescription eyeglasses, and in trying to beat a traffic light, traveling at 80 miles per hour, she hit the boy on the bike as he was crossing the street at an intersection. The car kept going, a hit-and-run; the young 12-year-old victim flew 130 feet in the air, and landed with 21 broken bones, including my collar bone, and a collapsed lung. After all was diagnosed, the boy was left with a paralyzed right arm, with nerve damage where the arm is connected to the spinal column.

Jason was in the hospital for three months, after several operations and therapy to bring him to a functioning point with only his left arm able to be used and the prognosis that his right arm would never function again. As if the car accident and the injury were not enough with which to cope as a 12-year-old, Charles Lester died of a heart attack from the stress induced by his son’s tragedy. ( 9 months later )

“So, just think…My mother was not in the picture from the time I was two years old. My brother was not able to live with me because he was given to his biological father. I have lost the use of my right arm, my pitching arm. And my father died,” explained this handsome, athletically lean young man. “I went to live with my grandmother, Ida. She was in her 60s at the time. She didn’t quite know how to deal with all she now had to handle.”

Within a year, however, Jason was back playing baseball. He played in the outfield and made the All-Star team again. When he started high school, he played football as the center. His previous focused athletic training prepared Jason Lester for retraining his left arm to hit the baseball and catch those left field balls. In his junior year he ran track and cross-country. As a senior in high school, Lester discovered the biathlon, which combines running and biking. And then Jason discovered he could swim with just his left arm propelling him.

Jason Lester moved to southern California in 1998 to train in good weather. Jason trained and trained, keeping himself fit and trim. He was picked up by a sports agency and after too much intense training; he put his running on hold. He moved to El Segundo and began a secondary career as an artist.

Using his artistic talents to express the frustrations his life had presented to him thus far, Jason Lester used his studio on Concord Street in El Segundo to paint room-size canvasses. He lived there and sometimes hibernated with his paints and his canvasses and his thoughts.

His stamina built back up over a four-year period. Jason was beginning to get back to a mental state where athletes know they need to be when wanting to participate in their specialty sport again. Jason wasn’t sure he wanted to run or bike or swim as a professional, but he continued to train because athletes usually just like the training phase. Lester had once run in as many as 60 different marathons and triathlons. Where once sports had been a focus, his art was playing as pinch hitter, if only for a little while.

He opened a gallery in Manhattan Beach. He built up a clientele of art lovers who commissioned large pieces and Jason continued to paint and express himself. But he was also running again. In 2004, Jason took a vacation to Kona, Hawaii. Coincidentally, the very next day after his arrival, the Ironman Triathlon was being held on Kona. Lester watched the spectacular events and knew what his next steps would be.

Jason Lester hired world record holder Karlyn Pipes-Nielsen to train him in the Ironman. On April 15, 2006, Jason Lester participated in the Phoenix, Arizona Ironman Race. The young athlete who had made so much news returned home and the television stations covered the event for the news of Jason Lester. Jason finished the event in 700th place out of 2500 participants and finished the Ironman in 12 hours 38 min, while many participants, without Lester’s unusable arm, finished in 16 hours.

Now, Jason Lester is participating in as many Ironman races as he possibly can. On July 22, 2007, he participated in the New York Ironman and placed 2nd in his division, qualifying him to represent the United States in the World Championships in Hamburg, Germany.

“It is amazing what the human spirit can overcome, you know?” said Jason. “I didn’t think, after the accident, that I would be able to play baseball or football. But I did because I had to honor my father’s plan for me, even if it was not on a professional level. I didn’t think I would be able to be a participant in the type of sport the Ironman is, with all the swimming and biking. I have been able to adapt my swimming without the use of my right arm. The biking was interesting at first, until I figured out how to adapt the right side of the balance with my right arm in place on the handlebar.

“When I was in high school I looked up to my Chemistry teacher, Mr. Marfe, so much. He was a Pro Triathlete and he was the one who suggested that I become a biathlon participant back then,” shared Jason. “When I returned to Arizona last year, Jerry was in my cheering section. It was so great to know that the man who had been like a father to me was there. In fact, he decided to start training again and participated this past April in Arizona!”

With his results and the second place finish in the Nautica New York Triathlon, Jason is looking forward to participation at the World Championships September 1st. His training is now more intense than ever. He trains six days a week by swimming, running, biking, using weights three times a week, and getting his mind around the race.

The Ironman race is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2 marathon run. Jason has his mind set on competing in the UltraMan in 2008. The UltraMan is a race that more than doubles the Ironman. Participants swim for 6 miles, cycle for 256 miles, and run two full marathons. The Ultra Ironman is actually completed around the island of Hawaii. With some parameters, such as finishing the swim and the cycling within a specific number of hours for each portion of the race, athletes need to be in extreme condition.

“I know I have no limits to how I can perform in the Ironman. With an open mind and the ability to ‘see’ the finish line, I can accomplish anything,” said Lester, his sharp blue eyes indicating his intense belief in his abilities. “When I was at Arizona State University, where I ran track, I majored in nutrition. So I know what I need to do to my body and what I need to eat to maintain the best possible fitness.

“My training is really important to me and so I love training as much as possible,” he continued. “I look forward to the marathons, the triathlons, the Ironman races because the more I train and participate the more I feel my arm coming back. I now have use, however minimal it is, of my tricep and my bicep on my right arm. The doctors told me I would never have feeling or use of it, but I am determined to overcome the odds.

“In my life I have learned that I can do anything I put my mind to. I also realize I have a story to tell and so I have formed a production company, based here in El Segundo. We are currently working on the script and hope to begin filming in March. ‘Chasing Me’ is the title of the film as it tells the story of the time before my accident and the relationship of my Dad and me. We are getting the funding together. As executive producer I can really make sure the movie tells my story.

“But we have also been filming my training and the triathlons and the Ironman races. Those will be edited to a documentary film to hopefully give inspiration to others with any disability or physical challenge,” stated Jason. “Even though I know I have a story to tell and I want to share it with the world, I do try to maintain humility. I do attribute all my good fortunes to God. With God you can do anything. Look at my arm coming back, and even losing my Dad I was able to find a good role model in a teacher.

“Being raised by my Grandma was difficult for both of us. I actually have been on my own since I was 17. My grandmother is now my biggest fan. We talk every day and she lets me know when I’m not doing my best. I also have another big fan, my four-year-old daughter, Katana, who lives in Hawaii with her mother. Training in Hawaii is fun because I get to see her when I am there.

“I will be training in Kona for the Australia Ironman, which is in December. Now I have qualified for the World Championships in Triathlons. In the Nautica, I placed 6th in the swim, 2nd in the cycling and 1st in the marathon phase, for a 2nd place overall in the P.C. Division. All the training was worth it for this best so far of my placing,” Jason said.

From all the tragedy has come inspiration. From the inspiration has come a life filled with joy and love and dedication to overcoming all the results of that past tragedy. Jason Lester is an inspiration for all who hear his story. He is an Ironman athlete, with a heart of gold.