{"id":27849,"date":"2018-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-professor-headed-to-louisville-for-ironman-competition\/"},"modified":"2021-11-12T01:25:37","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T01:25:37","slug":"tarleton-professor-headed-to-louisville-for-ironman-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-professor-headed-to-louisville-for-ironman-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarleton professor headed to Louisville for Ironman competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dr.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Randall Bowden<\/p>\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, October 12, 2018<\/p>\n

STEPHENVILLE, Texas — His wife calls him O.T.H.<\/p>\n

One Tough Hombre.<\/p>\n

It’s a nickname he has earned more than once.<\/p>\n

Dr. Randall Bowden, professor of educational leadership and head of the education leadership and technology department at Tarleton State University, races in Ironman competitions. That’s 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles on a bike and 26.2 miles running.<\/p>\n

He’s heading to Louisville, Ky., Friday for such an event.<\/p>\n

He thinks it’s fun.<\/p>\n

His toughness becomes more evident when you realize that he’s challenging the most demanding athletic competition in the world while battling cancer.<\/p>\n

For the second time.<\/p>\n

Bowden grew up in Idaho and Southern California. He has been at Tarleton a year, coming from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. At no stop along the road was he a triathlete.<\/p>\n

Then he had breakfast one morning with his wife, Cindy, a kindergarten teacher in Cleburne, and one of Cindy’s best friends, Lisa Lowe, who is quite an athlete.<\/p>\n

“I would never have gotten into triathlons had it not been for my wife and her friend,” he said. “Lisa kept asking my wife to train with her. My wife was like, ‘I will never, ever, ever … but Randall will.’ ”<\/p>\n

Bowden was not into swimming or biking, but he liked running. He grudgingly agreed to give the idea some thought.<\/p>\n

“Through the remainder of the breakfast they pestered me. They stayed on me, so I agreed to do one.” Cindy takes exception to “pestered” but admits she and her friend did apply some pressure.<\/p>\n

“Lisa and Randall are just alike. They’re both competitive and driven. They have competed together all over. In fact, Lisa and her husband will be in Louisville to watch Randall.”<\/p>\n

Bowden and his new racing partner found a short triathlon race about a month out and began a regimen that included swimming, mountain biking and running. He quickly realized that training differs greatly from an actual competition.<\/p>\n

“I barely got out of the pool,” he said of his first race. “It was exhausting. I got on the bike and was pedaling away. People on these $5,000 race bikes were passing me like I’m a spectator. I get off the bike and I fly on the run and cross the finish line thinking, ‘This is for me. I’ve found a new hobby.’ I fell in love with it.”<\/p>\n

Bowden’s first full Ironman came after watching the world championships in Kona, Hawaii, on television. Athletes have to be invited or qualify for Kona, and “I’m not that good,” he said. “But I knew after watching that I had to do that distance.”<\/p>\n

He amped up his training and entered a competition in Australia, and again he finished. But this time was more moving somehow. “I came across the finish line in tears. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done.”<\/p>\n

A year-and-a-half later, during the swimming portion of a competition, he sensed something was wrong. He finished the swim, 1.2 miles, but came out of the water exhausted.<\/p>\n

Two days later his doctor performed eight hours of tests and put a stent in his kidney. Bowden was approaching kidney failure, with 250 times the normal level of toxins in his system.<\/p>\n

He had stage four cancer.<\/p>\n

One Tough Hombre faced a bigger challenge than an Ironman course.<\/p>\n

At Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, he began an 80-hour course of chemotherapy — four hours in the evening, 22 hours to recover, then four more hours until he reached 20 hours for the week. He’d go home for two weeks before returning for another round.<\/p>\n

At the three-quarters mark, he considered giving up: “I was 68 hours into chemo and thinking I would not make it. ‘If I die tonight, OK, but I can’t do this.’ ”<\/p>\n

Except surrender was not an option.<\/p>\n

“My wife was there. She has been there through training, finish lines, diagnosis, treatment, everything. I thought, ‘If I’m the toughest person she knows, and that my friends know, then what hope does this give them when they face adversity? I can’t die.’ ”<\/p>\n

He came away from the chemotherapy weak but determined to compete again.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, after being declared cancer free, he began training for a triathlon sprint, a competition covering 750 meters swimming, 20 kilometers biking and a run of 5 kilometers.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t really say I competed,” he said with a chuckle. “I participated.”<\/p>\n

But amid hopes of returning to a rigorous training and event schedule, he would have to prove his mettle yet again.<\/p>\n

In July he was diagnosed with bone cancer.<\/p>\n

“Mentally, it was pretty devastating. That was tough to take,” he admits. “I kept thinking, if it’s terminal, fine, but I’m going to go out on my terms. If I can continue to train and to compete, then that’s what I’m going to do.”<\/p>\n

And he has.<\/p>\n

Battling pain and the neuropathy that resulted from nerve damage when he underwent chemotherapy, he perseveres, his sights set on Louisville.<\/p>\n

“I was with him when he visited with his oncologist,” Cindy said. “I told her, ‘This is not working out. It’s swimming a mile and riding a bike 50 miles, then running 10 miles.’ I was afraid he was overdoing it.<\/p>\n

“But the doctor said, ‘Do whatever you want to and can do. Just pay attention to what your body and your wife are saying.’ ”<\/p>\n

Bowden hopes to finish in 13 hours, but he’s a realist. It may be 15. The time is not important. Finishing is. He sees the big picture.<\/p>\n

“I’m not going to finish in the top of my age group; maybe I’ll be somewhere in the middle. The important thing for me is to finish.”<\/p>\n

Cindy, a daughter and two of the Bowdens’ five grandchildren will be at the finish line in Kentucky as part of a 20-person entourage of fans.<\/p>\n

All to cheer the toughest man any of them know.<\/p>\n

Tarleton, founding member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven education marked by academic innovation and a dedication to transform today’s scholars into tomorrow’s leaders. It offers degree programs to more than 13,000 students at Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian, RELLIS Academic Alliance in Bryan, and online, emphasizing real-world learning experiences that address societal needs while maintaining its core values of tradition, integrity, civility, excellence, leadership and service.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

Contact: Phil Riddle, News and Information Specialist
817-484-4415
priddle@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STEPHENVILLE, Texas — His wife calls him O.T.H.<\/p>\n

One Tough Hombre.<\/p>\n

It’s a nickname he has earned more than once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[430,437],"class_list":["post-27849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","tag-academic-affairs","tag-college-of-education"],"acf":{"image":null},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-986-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Academic Affairs<\/a>","College of Education<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academic Affairs<\/span>","College of Education<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 8 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on October 12, 2018","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on October 12, 2018 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on November 12, 2021 1:25 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Runner crossing the finish line on a red carpet at an outdoor event.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}