Joey Lee doesn’t enter many online contests, so when he saw Triathlete Magazine announce they were having one to choose a future cover model, he thought he would give it a whirl.
Lee, who began running alongside his father at 10 years old, has been a die-hard triathlete since 1987.
In December, Lee saw Triathlete Magazine post on Twitter a contest that involved an essay on “what triathlon means to you” and so he decided to take a shot.
“I actually sent it to Casey, my wife, and she said ‘You’re going to win,’” Lee says. “In February I got a call from San Diego and it was the editor of the magazine telling me I had won.”
Joey thought he didn’t stand a chance so it all came as a complete surprise to him.
But, it’s his story — one filled with so much grit, determination and emotion — that, once read, is hard to see why there was ever any doubt in the first place.
Joey will celebrate his 30th year as a triathlete this year, and he says the sport shaped his life, and saved it as well.
With no direction in college at Louisiana State University, Joey just fell into the sport. With a background in running and swimming, the biking came naturally.
In the late-1990s, Joey married Allison, and everything was going great until she her melanoma had returned.
“For the next two years we were in and out of intensive chemo and biotherapy treatments and 14-hour surgeries at M.D. Anderson and the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Houston,” his essay reads. “The treatments were so tough we were in the hospital for 2-3 weeks at a time. The only time I left her side was to train. For untold hours I would max out the crappy little recumbent bike and treadmill in the workout room at the apartment we rented. If I hadn’t had this outlet, I don’t think I would have made it.”
Then in 2003, Allison lost her battle with cancer, and as Joey says it, he was crushed.
“The day she died, I went out for a hard 8-mile run, it was a beautiful sunset, and I remember it like it was yesterday,” he writes. “If it hadn’t been for triathlon, I honestly don’t think I’d have made it through Allison’s death.”
Joey later met his second wife, Casey, during a swim at the Ross Barnett Reservoir and together they have a beautiful 4-year-old daughter, Ginger Allison.
A couple of weeks after Triathlete Magazine notified Joey his essay had won and he would be the cover model, they flew both he and Casey out to the West Coast for a photo shoot.
As Manager of Communications for Entergy Mississippi, Joey is used to being on the other end of the camera giving direction, so this photo shoot was a little different.
He says they positioned him at Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego where he would run 50-yard intervals.
Those sprints were nothing for someone who has competed in four Ironman Triathlons though.
Joey has also run the Marathon des Sables, a 150-mile run in the Moroccan desert. He participated in the Race around Alcatraz, and he was in the Boston Marathon in 2013 when two bombs were detonated near the finish line. Joey finished the race approximately half-an-hour before the explosions.
In addition, he has raised over $100,000 for the American Cancer Society.
From the heart of Madison to the front page of Triathlete Magazine, Joey Lee continues to share his story of grit and gumption, discovery and determination as he plans to compete for the next 47 years of his life.
