Last October, Brian Boyle was about 100 yards from the finish line at the 2007 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, when reality kicked in!

Numbed for more than 14 hours by the rush of adrenaline and emotion, his thighs burned with a searing pain. His last 300 feet culminated the most gruelling test of endurance and athleticism known to anyone -- a 2.4 mile ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile bicycle ride (across the Hawaiian lava desert), and then, a 26.2 mile marathon!

With his legs swollen, feet covered in blisters, toenails turning black, and skin bubbling from the scorching sun, the 21-year-old college swimmer embraced the discomfort as affirmation of his long journey back. The reward for all his hard work was about to be realized: the finish line. In moments, Boyle would fulfill a lifelong dream of competing in an Ironman triathlon, and also close the chapter on his most difficult period of his life.

FLASH BACK TO JULY 6, 2004!
One month after graduating from Maurice J. McDonough High School in Maryland, Boyle was involved in a devastatingly horrific auto accident. His 1994 Chevy Camaro was T-boned by a huge dump truck, instantly transforming his sports car into a surreal wreckage of twisted steel and shattered glass.

Paramedics who arrived on the scene assumed this was a fatality. Med-evacuated by helicopter to Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, Maryland, Brian was in grave condition. Brian was splayed out on emergency room operating table with body parts in disarray. The impact of the crash significantly moved his heart, collapsed both lungs, shattered his pelvis and several ribs, snapped his clavicles, damaged nerves in his left shoulder and his spleen and gall bladder both were ruptured. He had lost 60 percent of his blood.

Trauma team doctors debated whether emergency surgery would be futile or not. Dr. James Catevenis had to break the news to Boyle's parents. "Your son is extremely critical and I am sorry, but he is hanging by a thread. He could leave us at any time."

Brian's broken body gave out and his heart stopped eight different times before doctors fully stabilized him. Like a proverbial cat that has nine lives, Brian Boyle had kept coming back.

Due to the extreme trauma he suffered, doctors put him in a chemically induced coma and on life support. Over the next two months, Brian underwent 14 operations, 36 blood transfusions and 13 plasma treatments. His liver and kidney failed and he lost 100 pounds. Meanwhile, his father (Garth) and mother (Joanne) stood over his bed and wept constantly. When Brian regained consciousness, doctors delivered the sobering news that he might never walk again. Over the next few weeks, Boyle had to endure paralysis, pneumonia, infections, seizures, CAT scans, and countless MRI's.

Now a sickly skeleton unable to move or communicate, Boyle had to endure the excruciating pain in his own private hell. While every day was a roller coaster, Brian slowly regained his ability to walk and talk. Once a chiselled 230-pound athlete, he was now frail with atrophied muscles and weighed less than 130 pounds.

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY
In physical therapy, Brian was on an exercise program that looked like it was designed for an infant, squeezing towels, shaking hands, tying shoes, and sitting up without support were humbling to the once strapping athlete, but these would set the foundation for a full recovery.

After two weeks of physical therapy at Prince George's Hospital, he was transferred to Baltimore's Kernan Hospital for more intense rehabilitation. He progressed to more advanced movements like curling with a two-and-a-half-pound dumbbell, playing catch with a tennis ball, bench pressing with a broom stick, and standing up with the help of a walker.

He says, "I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds because my legs and ankles were so weak."Eventually, he mustered enough strength to push himself around in his wheelchair, feed himself and take a shower. After a week at Kernan, he went home and was assigned to outpatient therapy.

Over the next three months, Brian began to walk again and progressed to a slow jog. A state champion swimmer before the accident, though, he yearned to get back into the water. One day, Boyle got the nerve to doggy paddle one lap. After a pep talk from Olympic swimmer Gary Hall Jr., Boyle set his sights on his next goal: getting back onto the college swim team, which was his chosen path before the car accident scuttled those plans.

In late December, Boyle joined a gym and over the next six months, he would bust his tail three times a week, hitting the weights hard with a new found focus and determination.

BRIAN'S STRENGTHTRAINING PROGRAM SPLITS:

• DAY 1) Triceps and chest - bench presses, incline presses, dumbbell flyes, pushups, triceps pushdowns and dips.
• DAY 2) Back and biceps — barbell curls, dumbbell curls, lat pulldowns and dumbbell rows.
• DAY 3) Legs, traps and delts - squats, leg extensions, leg curls, lunges, calf raises, shrugs and dumbbell lateral raises.

Eventually Brian packed back on the 100-lbs. of muscle that he had lost! In Sept. 2005, a little more than a year after his accident, he enrolled at St. Mary's College in MD and competed for the St. Mary's swim team during the fall semester. But, he developed mononucleosis and pneumonia. Ugh!

While he sat out the spring semester to build more strength and stamina, he exchanged e-mails with professional body builder Jay Cutler. After the famous body builder shipped him a book and workouts, Brian decided to become a body builder. Using Cutler's protocols, and nutritional supplements donated from 4EverFit, a Canadian supplement company, it wasn't long before Brian was up to 220 pounds. He even earned a personal training certification so that he could train and encourage others. But something was still missing, and in the spring of 2007, that inspiration arrived via e-mail. Boyle always admired the Hawaii Ironman competitors and grew up watching the show. Last May, he sent Ironman officials an e-mail with his story!

Several weeks later, Peter Henning, Ironman's Vice President of Production, responded, saying he would extend a special media invitation if Brian could get doctor's approval and qualify. Wow. Brian got clearance from his cardiologist! Now he had to transform his body from a bulked up body builder to a svelte triathlete in only weeks. He took his weight from 220 to about 195 pounds. Every day, Boyle ran on the treadmill for an hour in the early afternoon and rode his mountain bike for an hour after work.

Cannondale donated a road bike for Boyle to use in his qualifying race and he finished! Two weeks later, he was invited to Kona. With again just weeks to prepare for Kona, Boyle's training took a radical turn. Now under the guidance of Lance Watson, the head trainer with LifeSport (the official trainers of Ironman), Boyle had to learn the technical aspects of competing with other world-class tri-athletes, like switching gears on a road bike, handling the pedals, and riding in the aero position.

Under Watson's guidance, Boyle progressed from one hour of training per day to six hours per day, using training splits that they call "bricks,"which combine two segments of the triathlon together, like running and biking one day, swimming and running the next. Down to a lean 180 pounds, Boyle was ready for Kona. Brian Boyle crossed the finish line in Hawaii!!

When the PA announcer, Mike Reilly, shouted "Brian Boyle, YOU are an Ironman,"Brian took a deep breath and flexed his biceps for the crowd. Earlier, Brian had the word "alpha" tattooed in Greek letters on his left shoulder. Alpha in the Greek system means the first, as in their alphabet. His tattoo was his symbol of recovery, a constant reminder of how far he had come from near death to finish FIRST in life. Brian Boyle is a Planet Muscle hero!

By Curt Blakeney