REAL-LIFE STRUGGLE : Triathlete Will Compete on Relay Team Despite Having Cancer

Irene Volodkevich used to take triathlons so seriously that she left the Marine Corps to concentrate on training for an Ironman event.

Volodkevich, 28, still enjoys participating in triathlons, but now the sport helps her in a far more serious struggle.

She has malignant melanoma, a form of cancer that was detected in a mole and has since spread to her lymph nodes. This type of cancer usually starts in a mole, spreads into the bloodstream and settles in the lymph or organ system. It is one of the deadliest forms of cancer because of its rate of advancement.

Volodkevich sees a correlation between participating as a member of a triathlon team and fighting cancer.

“Cancer is very individual, but it’s a whole team thing--like a triathlon,” she said. “It’s weird how the analogy is there, but it’s the same thing.”

She will be part of a three-person relay team at Sunday’s Pepsi/San Diego International Triathlon, swimming a one-kilometer leg off Spanish Landing.

The next day, she’ll be back in a hospital for more therapy.

After Volodkevich swims, Steve Klasna will pedal 30 kilometers on his bicycle from Spanish Landing to the Cabrillo Monument and back. Rick Ward will then go on a 10-kilometer run on Harbor Drive to a finish near Seaport Village.

A much bigger group is involved in Volodkevich’s battle with cancer, which began 2 1/2 years ago.

Most of the therapy she has had or hopes to have is experimental. It also is expensive.

“If it wasn’t for the donations, specifically to the University Hospital (UC San Diego Cancer Center) than I wouldn’t be able to partake in these programs,” Volodkevich said during a telephone interview from her home in San Francisco. “I feel very grateful to the community of mankind. I mean it’s almost like a triathlon, when you’re doing an individual effort but at the same time it’s a team effort.”

She grew up near a lake in Ohio, and always was outdoors, always in the the sun, playing sports. She went to Ohio State and participated in tennis one year and swimming three years.

She discovered triathlons after entering the Marine Corps.

She met Rick Ward in 1984 at the Marine base in Quantico, Va., and they became friends. Ward, 32, is now a Marine warrant officer in San Diego.

After four years in the Marines, Volodkevich, a captain, decided to leave to concentrate on triathlons. She came to La Jolla in late 1984 to train for a triathlon in New Zealand. She had competed in three triathlons by then, finishing in the top 10 in each. A month before she was to leave for New Zealand, she found out she had melanoma.

“At that time, statistically, my prognosis was very good,” she said. “There was a 90% chance that it would not even show or a good chance for a five-year remission.”

But instead it traveled to her lymph nodes.

“I didn’t even think about it and I never let it affect my life, and then it came up again in February,” she said. “When it’s dangerous is when it hits the lymph system. That’s when the melanoma is very life threatening. I was told by several doctors, there is a 5% chance of holding it in remission and being alive next year.”

After the first diagnosis, she decided she would concentrate on swimming. The intrigue of San Francisco eventually influenced her to move there to work (she got her real estate license) and swim.

When she was diagnosed a second time, she became depressed and gained weight. Experimental therapy kept her from swimming. Ward came up with idea of competing as part of a triathlon relay team.

“I knew the International Triathlon was coming up,” Ward said. “I said, ‘Let’s just go in it.’ She said, ‘You can’t get in it, you have to be invited.’ ”

Ward called race director Rick Kozlowski and told him about Volodkevich.

“You’re in,” Kozlowski said.

Ward’s next step was to find a cyclist. He went to the La Jolla Grand Prix and found Steve Klasna, a professional with GS Sharks.

“I didn’t even know the guy,” Ward said. “I told him the story and he said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”

Volodkevich’s battle with cancer has a special impact on Ward, because both his parents died of cancer.

“I just told her what the hell, you know, whatever you want to do, you do,” Ward said.

What has amazed Ward and his wife, Joyce, is that Volodkevich has maintained such a positive attitude.

“If you talk to her, you would think you had the wrong person,” Joyce said. “She’s so full of life. It seems to not have affected her at all at this point.”

Said Volodkevich: “It’s so hard to plan anything very firm, but you try to establish short-term goals. This triathlon is a real big step for me, and I want to do it no matter what.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m 15 pounds overweight or not in ideal shape. It doesn’t matter because I want to do it for the spirit and the whole community feeling of all the people. . .for fun. I haven’t any pressure to do any kind of time, but just to go out and enjoy it and feel it and have fun. And it’s back to the hospital the next day.”

Monday she’ll undergo treatment at the UC San Francisco Medical Center, but in August she hopes to be the first patient to undergo anti-idiotype melanoma vaccine. If the treatment is approved by the Federal Drug Administration, she will take it at the UC San Diego Cancer Center.

Although therapy periodically disrupts her training, she tries to swim twice a day.

“For me, sports balances or centers me,” she said. “That’s what I found when I came out of the hospital. I went for a 10-mile run and than a swim and I felt so centered again. . . and I’ve never felt better.

“I’m in a moment now, because of the cancer, to just really think hard what I want to do,” said Volodkevich, who’s considering moving to La Jolla. “I’ve been reorganizing and looking at things and re-evaluating them. It’s a very peaceful experience what is going on and that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t had cancer.” In her mind, she has not been defeated by cancer.

“Personally, I feel that we will have a cure for cancer,” she said. “I’m that hopeful and right now I feel almost like I’m living on the edge. I feel confident. I feel very certain that I will be here and I don’t know how to explain that feeling.”