Iron Men: Father-son team races not to win, but to overcome

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Every time he crosses a finish line, Johnny Agar gets the same type of reaction: Cheers and tears of joy.

"People wouldn't really associate me with being an athlete. But I'm happy to prove people wrong all the time," he said.

Few can fathom what it takes for Agar to cross a finish line. He was born with cerebral palsy, so his muscles don't follow the orders from his brain. It makes it impossible for him to move with the grace of his favorite athletes.

"Athletes have taught me a lot in life as to how I need to go about pursuing my own challenges in life, and just the persistence that you need to have if you want to be successful or want to be more independent. In my case, that's what success is for me," he said.

When he was born, Agar's parents were told he would never walk or talk. Jeff and Becki Agar did not accept that. They never stopped believing and made the decision to challenge and encourage their son.

"We just didn't want him to sell himself short," Jeff Agar said.

It was a struggle, but eventually Johnny Agar could speak and walk. Still, he yearned to be an athlete. So his father, who up until that point in his life was never a runner, decided he would support his son. He offered to push his son in his wheelchair through a 5K.

Johnny Agar wanted to do his part.

"He said, 'I want to go beyond participating. I want to really feel like what it's like to be an athlete,'" Jeff Agar recalled.

Johnny Agar decided that since his dad was willing to put in the work to get him through the race, he would put in the work to finish it. He decided he would walk the final mile.

Before that, his father said, Johnny Agar had barely walked 23 consecutive steps.

"I quickly calculated — it's like 6,000 steps. And it would have been the typical thing to say, 'Well, that's not going to happen.' That's a long way to go, right?" Jeff Agar said. "But my wife and I said, 'Yeah, we're going to encourage him and let's see what happens.'"

What happened was the type of thing you see in movies: Step by grueling step, never giving up and with a growing crowd cheering him on, Johnny Agar made his way to the finish line.

"I have to focus on everything, from my breathing to my posture to where I place my foot," Johnny Agar explained. "But it's like with anything: If you have a training plan and you have a goal in mind and you are willing to put forth the time and the effort to achieve it, then you can."

Goal achieved, the Agars started thinking bigger. They turned their eyes to triathlons, even though Jeff Agar had never been a runner, biker nor swimmer. They put in the time and eventually tried to tackle the most difficult race of all: The Ironman World Championship at Kona, Hawaii. The team fell short, pulled off the course because they didn't hit the time standard. But they didn't consider it a loss.

"My wife originally said, 'Something good's going to come of this (racing with Johnny),' and I, of course, said, 'Nothing good's going to come of it.' Well, some great things have come of it. Johnny's done amazing things in his life so far, all because we showed overcoming challenges was what it was all about, not finishing Kona the first time around," Jeff Agar said.

They have completed plenty of races since Kona. Now, seven years after their first try, they have been invited back.

So Jeff Agar walks up early every morning to train before work. He runs, swims and bikes to prepare for the extremely tough race ahead. Will they finish this time? Who knows. But it almost doesn't matter.

"Opportunities come along. You can't be afraid of them. You're going to fail and you might fail more than others, but it's just part of the process," Jeff Agar said. "How do I tell this kid now that I'm not willing to do this when I've been preaching to him his whole life that you've got to take on challenges?"

He doesn't have to look far for motivation. Every time he hits a wall, he sees his son beaming and marvels at his astonishing resilience.

"There's so many times your body is telling you you've had enough, you've got to stop," he said. "And seeing what Johnny is going through really helps you to push through."