By Chuck Curley
The Evening Sun
Hanover, Pa. — Newton’s Third Law states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
The same could be said for Dwayne Smith’s athletic career.
When the 17-year Hanover Borough police officer found he didn’t have the available schedule to play team sports, he took up running.
When he began to suffer nagging injuries from running, he found the triathlon - the endurance combination of swimming, biking and running.
This weekend, when he enters the Eagleman Ironman 70.3 in Cambridge, Md., he’s hoping his move to the triathlon leads to a spot in the Ford Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.
“It’s become my lifestyle. This sport has become my identity of mine, where people identify me with the sport now,” Smith said.
Smith holds no illusions about his pursuit to join some of the world’s most fit athletes in October in the 50th state. To get there, he said he must place first or second in his age group in the Eagleman, a half-triathlon consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and 13.1-mile run.
“I want to try to qualify for the full Ironman distance (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile run) in Hawaii, although it’s going to be very difficult,” he said.
So why do it?
He said it eventually may take years to qualify for the Ironman in Hawaii, but he also feels he’s close now.
Based upon his results last year to place among the top five percent in his age group, Smith, 37, has been named an All-American by USA Triathlon.
He also has now qualified twice in the two years of the Ford Ironman 70.3 World Championships, the top meet in the half-trathlon, and will compete in the 2007 event in November in Clearwater, Fla.
“I feel I’m more competitive in the half-Ironman distances because I feel I can push myself a little harder,” he said, “The Ironman distance is a race where you have to have patience and have more planned strategy where you somewhat have to save yourself.
“You can’t go hard in the swim and bike and have it all together for the run.”
However, Smith’s strength is running and he still competes locally in footraces, including some organized by the South Penn Road Runners Club.
In fact, Smith, a club member, won the club’s Triple Crown, based upon his finish in three annual local footraces, in 1995.
Shortly thereafter, though, he switched to the triathlon.
A veteran of more than 10 marathons, Smith said, “There were friends of mine who did them and I realized there was another challenge out there besides the marathon.”
He completed his first full triathlon in 1998 in Florida and has been training for such events since then.
“When you have some competitiveness, not just with yourself, but you know you can compete in your age group, you start setting goals for yourself,” he said.
He has posted best times of 4 hours, 32 minutes in the half-triathlon and 10:43 over the full distance.
Along the way, he has learned not to overtrain, to rest properly before competition, to eat a healthy diet, to keep sharp by entering other runs and triathlons and to master the unique challenges of a triathlon.
“When the weather’s nice, you can train in open water in lakes around here,” he said of his acknowledged weakest event, the swim. " ... In open water, when you’re navigating, it’s an issue. It’s more difficult to swim in a straight line than in a pool.”
He said the sport also requires a bicycle which any Tour de France cyclist would envy to cut through the wind.
“It is an expensive sport. I don’t have a sponsorship to support my habit, but most triathletes are not sponsored,” he said. “That limits people where they can race and how many qualifying races they can travel to.”
Yet Smith said triathlon is no longer a sport for the few. In fact, he said one triathlon in Lake Placid, N.Y., attracts 2,000 entrants and that spots in it sell out in a day.
“I think that is because there are people realizing that, when the marathon was once the challenge or the thing to do, they’re realizing there’s something else they can do to push themselves, to strive for,” he said.
Toward that goal, Smith insists he is a typical amateur athlete. His goal is not about victory. It’s about improvement and being among the best in his age group.
“I don’t care if I’m second or third in my age group as long as I’ve earned that spot,” Smith said. “That’s where I’m at.”
That spot is a berth in the Ford Ironman World Championship.
“The reason I want to go to Hawaii is it’s the Super Bowl of the sport,” he said.
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