GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE •

1997

Lesbian Gay Bi Pride Guide

From booze and drugs coast-to-coast triathlo

Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Jim Howley is the first person to bike, swim, and run across the U

Section C

by Tom Rappa

One evening in 1989, after leaving work for the day, Jim Howley had a chance meeting with a friend who was getting into her car. His friend was sweaty and out of breath. Howley asked, “What did you just do?" She responded that she had just finished running ten miles because she was training for a triathlon. Howley was surprised. "I never met anyone who ran ten miles," he said.

What Howley didn't know was that a seed had been planted that would grow to save him from a path of self-destruction and depression. This seed would eventually grow into his becoming the first person to cycle, swim, and run from coast to coast.

At the time he talked with his friend, Howley had a catering company in Los Angeles. Later he moved to Santa Barbara, where he ran the food service operation for the University of California. This was a position he would eventually have to resign from. Howley had an appetite for alcohol and cocaine.

into training, there was less time to party, and his friends were changing.

"My friends became supportive, they didn't care about the HIV, they looked at me as a triathlete," said Howley.

Since his diagnosis with AIDS in 1989, and a T-cell count that has risen from a low of two cells to a high over two hundred and sixty, Howley has run in over thirty marathons and completed the Hawaii Ironman.

Howley credits his remarkable fitness despite his diagnosis to a positive attitude, rigorous training optimized with the use of a heart rate monitor, and new drug therapies.

This 36-year-old athlete has now finished one of the most challenging tests of his endurance, to swim, bike, and run across the United States in fifty-four days from Los Angeles to New York.

"I went home and was crying. All of a sudden it was like, 'I'm going to do a

Howley's crosscountry trek is regarded as the first solo triathlon across America.

His travels include a swim across the Colorado and Mississippi Rivers and along the shores of Lake Michigan, cy-

triathlon.' Literally, it cling over the Rocky

was like a movie scene, it just popped into my head. I began

training for a triathlon in an attempt to beat this disease."

"I would drink a bottle of Absolut a night, a couple grams of coke and a box of sleeping pills every single day. I was a mess," he said. The next day his doctor told Howley he had AIDS, and gave him only eighteen months to live. "I went home and was crying. All of a sudden it was like, 'I'm going to do a triathlon.' Literally, it was like a movie scene, it just popped into my head. I began training for a triathlon in an attempt to beat this disease," Howley said.

In addition to his AIDS diagnosis and drug abuse, Howley smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.

"I went out, tried to run around the block and couldn't." Howley then joined a local swimming pool and bought an old racing bike with a cracked frame.

“I just kept at it,” he said. “Eight months later, I picked a triathlon and just kept aiming towards it."

Training proved challenging. Howley also has testicular cancer and has battled CMV. "My T-cells kept dropping and I kept getting sick. By three or four o'clock in the afternoon I had a fever. At five thirty, I'd force myself to go to the pool to work out. Whenever I'd leave there, I felt better, every single time."

While Howley kept training, he realized other things were changing. He attended A.A. meetings to give himself structure, and found that with more time and energy going

Mountains and through Moab, Utah, the mountain bike

capitol of the world,

a run down the Las

Vegas Strip, past the

Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and up the steps of City Hall in New York, where he was set to end his journey on Tuesday, May 27.

Along the way, Howley visited hospitals, spoke with elementary and high school students, and gave motivational speeches and seminars to groups of doctors, patients and athletes. Howley was in Cleveland on Thursday, May 15 to hold a press conference at the offices of the AIDS Taskforce of Cleveland.

Howley is hoping to raise awareness and celebrate life with his message that people can live strong, healthy lives after an AIDS diagnosis.

When asked about the medical community, Howley said, "I have very strong views about that. There is a big difference between standard care and standard of care. If they are going to treat people with HIV they need to give standard of care, because standard care doesn't work any more. They need to read the journals every day, like I do, or they have no business treating people with HIV."

To illustrate his point, Howley gave an example of a woman he had recently spoken with about her diagnosis.

“I asked her, are you getting regular pap smears? She said, 'No, do I need to?' She went to her doctor and he responded, 'Well, if you want them.' I'm so tired of that [atti-

Jim Howley

PSLAR

tude]. There is no reason for it."

In response to the idea that people with AIDS just get sick and die, Howley said, "Often these cues are picked up from the medical community. Unless they are seeing their patients living because they are on top of things, I think they're giving subconscious cues to the patients. I don't think the patients are getting it from themselves."

"People need to be empowered to pick the right doctors and to question the doc-

tors," Howley added. "At that point the

doctors are going to change their attitudes."

Howley told a story about the direc-

I was invited to the grade school, where the entire school was out on the lawn, in front of me, while I'm sitting on the grass talking to them. Then the middle school teacher swam with me across the Colorado River. That blew my mind."

"My T-cells kept dropping and I kept getting sick. By three or four o'clock in the afternoon I had a fever. At

five thirty, I'd force myself to go to the pool to work out. Whenever I'd leave there, I felt better, every single time.

tor of the chamber of commerce in Moab, Utah. The day after she lost her brother to AIDS, a press release landed on her desk announcing that Howley would be

to town.

"0

Howley hopes that his trip will raise more than $250,000, which he will donate to several charities that are important to him, including the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, American Lung Association, American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), Breast Cancer Research, and the Leukemia Society of America. Anyone who

wishes to help Howley in his efforts can make a check out to AIDS, Athletics Instead of Depression and Sickness, a nonprofit orcoming_ganization founded by Howley and his partner of six years, and mail it to P.O. Box 417, Carpenteria, Cal. 93014. For more information call 310-453-5191.

"She could have said, 'I don't want to see this guy,' but she opened up the whole town.