- November 5, 2024
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It was a sunny May 2012 day in Flagler Beach. After saying goodbye to his girlfriend, John Pieczonka hopped on his bicycle and set off on a 13-mile ride.
It would be his final tune-up before leaving for Hawaii in three days to compete June 2 in the Ironman Hawaii 70.3 — a half-Ironman in which participants swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles and then run 13.1 miles.
There was no way Pieczonka could know that tune-up would be his last ride for some time.
“It was a beautiful day, much like today,” Pieczonka said last week, looking out of a window and up toward the gleaming sun.
With three miles left in his ride on that day in May, Pieczonka was heading south on A1A, about one mile from High Bridge Road.
“The next thing I know, I woke up in somebody’s arms,” Pieczonka recalls. “She was holding my arm and said I was just hit by a car.” The driver hadn't stopped. It was a hit-and-run.
He was incoherent and in denial. The woman had called the emergency contact numbers listed on Pieczonka’s Road ID, a bracelet that he wears at all times. An ambulance was en route.
Pieczonka was stubborn, though. He got up and started walking his bike south on A1A heading home. About a quarter-mile later, a pickup truck slowed down and asked him if he was OK. Pieczonka, who was covered in blood from road rash, told the driver that he was fine, but would like a lift home. And so, he threw is mangled bike into the bed of the truck and jumped in.
When he got home, his girlfriend at the time, who was a flight attendant, had just landed at Orlando International Airport. Panicked, she called him to find out what happened after getting a voicemail from the woman who found him. Pieczonka told her that he felt fine. He was just tired and wanted to sleep, he told her.
After some convincing, however, he drove himself to Florida Hospital Flagler. He was eventually diagnosed with a dislocated left shoulder with some ligament damage, a broken bone in the bottom of his left foot and a concussion with frontal lobe brain injury.
Because of the concussion, doctors ordered him not to fly. Heading to Hawaii wasn’t an option. He had to withdraw from the race.
Proving people wrong
Pieczonka is an extremist.
He mountain climbs, kite surfs and loves spontaneity.
Now 32, he has lived in Flagler Beach for the past four years after relocating from Jacksonville. He’s always been an athlete, playing baseball and wrestling through high school.
But as he got older, life happened. He was busy with work and lost his focus on sports. He packed on weight, going from about 160 pounds, to around 220.
He was at a New Year’s Eve party in 2010 when he told his friends that he wanted to start running. He told them that someday, he'd run the Gate River Run — a 15-kilometer race in Jacksonville.
Pieczonka’s friends laughed. That was typical him: all talk, no game. He would say he’d do something, but he would never follow through. “If I started something, it wouldn’t last long,” Pieczonka said.
But he got into a groove.
“Everyone would see me running down A1A, and they knew I was finally committed to it,” he said.
It started with running about three miles per week, but that soon grew to more than 30 miles.
It became an addiction. As 2011 wore on, he competed in a couple half-marathons (13.1 miles), including the Daytona Beach Half Marathon, when he finished in about 1 hour, 40 minutes.
He suffered his first serious injury, a partially torn Achilles in his left leg, which put him in a walking boot and forced him to miss about two months. But in March, he was able to take the boot off in time to compete in the Gate River Run, just as he promised his friends.
At this point, everything was perfect, Pieczonka said. Two months after the run, he was as healthy as he could hope to be. He had picked up cycling as a training tool and loved it so much that he was preparing for his first Ironman — which also was going to be the first time he ran a sanctioned full marathon.
And then the car knocked him to the pavement on A1A.
Nothing but a surfboard and a wallet
Pieczonka is also a human.
But after the hit-and-run accident, Pieczonka was lost. Within a month, his girlfriend broke up with him. He was heartbroken, he said. Instead of lacing up his running shoes, he turned to a bottle of vodka.
“I lost focus,” he said. “I was hit by a car and my girlfriend broke up with me. That’s a lot to take in that month.”
When he did run, it was because people doubted him, not because he wanted to be doing it.
Eventually, one of his best friends, Dave Fiala — who is also listed as a contact on Pieczonka’s Road ID — reached out. Fiala knew his friend was going through tough times, and so he told Pieczonka to forget about training and get back to surfing.
A week later, Pieczonka decided to take a surfing trip to El Salvador. He left with the bare necessities: a surf board, flip flops, a tooth brush, shorts and a wallet. He didn’t have a place to stay. No plans where he would eat.
“When I landed, the taxi driver asked me where I need to go, and I told him, ‘Just take me to the beach,’” Pieczonka said. “I went there unprepared.”
He spent five days in El Salvador, mostly surfing, but also reconnecting with himself.
When he came back, he reached out to his running coach, John Josephs, of Kona The Human Performance.
Josephs told him to just register for any kind of race. In July, Pieczonka ended up running in a 5K, in Jacksonville.
With four months until the 2012 Ironman Florida, Pieczonka was refocused.
He got his bike fixed from the accident and started to run. He hadn’t been training to swim because of his shoulder injury. He said that when he would surf, he would have to use his wrists mostly to paddle out.
For about the last month, Pieczonka has really picked up his training. He’s run a half-marathon to gauge his fitness level.
“Everyone keeps asking me if I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m going to do the Ironman. I’ve already put in one withdrawal in this year, and that was the worst thing ever.”
And so, at 7 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, Pieczonka will be in the brisk water off the coast of Panama City Beach. He’ll take off on a 2.4-mile swim. Because of his shoulder, he said he’ll freestyle on the way out and then breaststroke on the way in.
After that, if he feels good, he’ll lock in his shoes to the pedals on his bike and ride 112 miles. And if he still feels OK, he’ll set off on a 26.2-mile run.
The ultimate goal: finish the combined course of 140.6 miles under the 17-hour time limit.
Easier said than done, but Pieczonka would love to finish the entire course. How would it feel to finish?
“I really don’t know,” he said Tuesday, after a long pause. “I really don’t know how it’s going to feel. It would be amazing. I’ll have friends there holding a hamburger and a beer, my two favorite things. But just getting to the starting line is a win for me after all I’ve been through.”
