Trailblazer: Blaze president has given new meaning to the term 'Ironman'
One place Ironman still lives, however, is in the Utah Blaze front office, where team president Jason Jones has gone from a former football player who didn't know how to swim to an annual competitor in what many consider the ultimate test of physical fitness and endurance.
"The speed of the road bike combined with the peace that comes from the swim and the natural high that I've always had from the run, those three," Jones said, "It's like an adrenaline cocktail for me."
Though he is not quite at the level of local triathlon stars like Dantley Young and Heath Thurston, completing Ironman has become a passion for Jones and he said his training is a perfect way to find balance in a stressful profession.
Jones, who punted for the University of Utah in the early '90s, has always been into fitness. He had completed numerous marathons when, while on vacation in Hawaii, he was struck by inspiration after watching Dick Hoyt train. Hoyt, a veteran of countless marathons and triathlons, competes with his disabled son, Rick — usually pulling him in a boat while he swims, pushing him in a wheelchair as he runs and carrying him in a special bike seat.
"I came back from that experience and I got in a pool," he said. "I went every day for a month until I could swim 25 meters and then 50 meters and, it's ironic, because now swimming is the most enjoyable part of doing the Ironman."
Working around some of the strongest athletes in Utah can be intimidating. Jones, with his football background, can relate to them but he also finds himself at odds with his employees at times.
They are meat-and-potato, bench-press machines. He is a salad-and-pasta, slow-twitch-endurance guy. Every time he invites a football player to join him for a leisurely four-hour bike ride or a mile swim, they ask if he'd like to visit the weight room for a few 500-pound squats first. So far, Jones said, nobody with the Blaze has taken him up on his offer and he's not quite ready to hulk out with them.
Still, the mutual respect is there.
"That's something you'll never get me to do in a million years," Blaze coach Danny White said. "But we know what it takes to be devoted to something like that. We might not think the same way all the time, but we respect what he's doing out there.
Recent comments
Acuaman eres increible!!!! no cambies nunca, adivinaste quien soy...
Piriguin, chile | July 11, 2008 at 6:54 p.m.
Hombre de acero eres increible!!! no cambies nunca,
pirig?in | July 11, 2008 at 6:51 p.m.
Jason, or Zoolander as we like to call him. Is a great role model...
Ryansutes | June 3, 2008 at 12:04 p.m.
