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Half Ironman next for Pavlansky
Canfield grad Pavlansky accepts challenge to honor cancer patients
By charles grove
It’s not often that a Division I tennis player jumps the ship to an event that involves more than 70 miles of physical exertion, but United States Naval Academy junior Allison Pavlansky isn’t one to back down from a challenge.
“If people tell me I can’t do something, I want to go out and do it,” Pavlansky said as she prepares for a Half Ironman event. The race includes a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run in August in Delaware, Ohio.
Pavlansky will be competing in the Half Ironman in honor of two people very close to her who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Karen Pavlansky, her mother, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. A Canfield resident, Karen Pavlansky for years has been a high school basketball official.
Angelo Ciminero, a Canfield High School football coach who has gone through multiple surgeries due to brain tumors, is the other person inspiring Pavlansky.
“These people have been so influential in my life and I want to do something for them and in their honor because they’re fighting something every day.” Pavlansky said.
Pavlansky is a former tennis and basketball standout at Canfield High School. Her father, Patrick, was her varsity basketball coach.
Allison Pavlansky played tennis for the Naval Academy her freshman and sophomore years. That experience was the first of many hurdles Pavlansky was told there was no way she would overcome.
“I had an AAU travel basketball coach who told me, ‘You’re never going to be a DI athlete.’ It stuck with me.
“I got into the Naval Academy and I played Division I,” she said. “I was a starter on the tennis team — I knew I was going to be a Division I athlete.”
Pavlansky began training for her first Half Ironman during her sophomore year and overdid it. She double fractured her hip, ending her sophomore season. She was unable to run for weeks.
At that point, Pavlansky had to choose which path she wanted to travel — the path with tennis or the path that would have her swimming through the Delaware Lake before running and biking through Delaware, Marion and Morrow counties.
A political science major who wants to fulfill her military requirement by joining the Marines, she is preparing for the grueling event by swimming four times a week, biking every day and is running about 25 miles a week. That number will increase the closer she gets to race day on Aug. 21.
She’s being careful not to overtrain like she did before the hip fracture.
“My longest run a week will be like six or seven miles,” Pavlansky said. “And I’ll only do that maybe once a week. I’m going up a mile every two weeks so that will put me right at 13 miles on race day in August.”
With the the hip injury still in the back of her mind, Pavlansky said she will feel a few nerves between now and August.
“I’m pretty nervous about potentially getting injured,” Pavlansky said. “But I have learned a lot from injuries in the past. I’m comfortable now, I’m stronger and I’m smart enough to listen to my body.
“If I’m hurting. I’m going to take a few days off.”
With the exception of getting used to swimming in open water instead of a pool, Pavlansky said she has everything she needs to train effectively at the Naval Academy, a place she had to prove others wrong to even attend.
“At Canfield High School my senior year, my vice principal said ‘I don’t know how you’re going to make it there,’ and I told him, ‘I’m going to. I promise you.’
“If someone tells me I can’t do something. I’m going to go and do it and I couldn’t be happier with where I’m at.”
The Half Ironman is a charity-driven event, with each participant agreeing to raise a certain amount of money in order to compete. Pavlansky has chosen to raise money for Save the Children.
She already has raised $320 towards her $2,500 goal. To donate or help share Pavlansky’s story and goal, visit the website at savethechildren.org/ohio/alliepav.