It’s safe to say most people wouldn’t take on a Half Ironman less than three months after completing chemo and radiation therapy for stage 4 cancer.
Then again, most people aren’t Keith Giffney.
Then again — most people aren’t Keith Giffney. Courtesy of Keith G.
Giffney, 56, first noticed something rubbing against his tongue in November 2023.
While it wasn’t painful, he figured he should get it checked out, and in January 2024, test results revealed he had cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes in his neck and upper chest, classifying it as stage 4.
It’s a diagnosis that would make many of us feel anxious, distressed or despondent — but not Giffney.
“I had this weird peacefulness about me,” he told The Post.
“When I was diagnosed, I just felt like, you know what, I got this, God’s got this. I’m gonna fight this.”
Giffney leaned on his family, his faith and his trust in the doctors at Northwestern Medicine — whom he described as on “a different level” of care.
And, having already previously decided to do the Half Ironman — a triathlon that consists of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1-mile run — he wasn’t going to let a little thing like cancer get in his way.
His first step was to quit chewing tobacco — while the doctors told him his cancer was related to the HPV virus, not tobacco, it couldn’t have possibly helped.
“The funny thing was — January 2023 — my New Year’s resolution was to quit,” he said. “Well, I think I waited 360 days into that year to finally quit.”
Four years sober, Giffney is no stranger to squashing vices, admitting that alcohol strained his relationship with his son.
“I did over 131 miles of swimming. I biked over 700 miles and I ran over 55.”
Keith Giffney
While he did the half, his 22-year-old son completed the full Ironman, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run.
“It was part of us doing things and getting back and building that trust together with him and working with him, training with him,” he said.
“We have a great friendship and great relationship. And it has been wonderful.”
Training for the marathon all of last summer was, to say the least, intense.
“I did over 131 miles of swimming,” he said. “I biked over 700 miles and I ran over 55.”
He would train five or six days a week, despite undergoing 12 rounds of chemotherapy and 35 rounds of radiation at the same time.
“I would try to replicate a mini triathlon,” Giffney explained.
That meant swimming a couple of miles a day in Lake Geneva, Illinois — where he lives — as well as an ample amount of biking and running.
Thankfully, the chemo didn’t hit him too hard.
“I could just tell that I was struggling initially after the chemo to maintain a certain level of speed — I was losing some of the strength in my legs,” he said. “But I gained it back when I got done with chemo.”
The radiation, on the other hand, was a different story.
“I lost all the taste buds, I couldn’t swallow,” he said.
Because he wasn’t producing as much saliva, whenever he would try to swallow while running, he would end up choking instead.
“I also couldn’t eat anything by the last few weeks of radiation — that was the worst,” he said.
Even then, he managed to put a positive spin on things.
“I needed to lose a few pounds when I was going into it to be lighter running, right?” he said.
Weeks before the big race, Giffney got good news: Doctors told him his cancer was gone and removed his chemo port.
Pretty soon, Sept. 7, 2024, rolled around — the day of the Half Ironman in Madison, Wisconsin. Despite describing himself as a “pretty anxious person sometimes,” mostly due to his desire to succeed, Keith said he felt very “at peace” that day.
“I was like, I’m not looking to beat anybody other than myself here,” he said.
That doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing, though.
When Keith got out of the water after the swimming part of the marathon, he felt disoriented.
And once he got on his bike, his leg cramped up — bad.
“It wasn’t just my legs. I couldn’t even breathe,” he said. “And then all of a sudden — it just went away.”
Crossing the finish line with his friends and family members — especially his kids — cheering him on was a great feeling.
“My whole goal was showing them how to handle adversity,” he said. “I wanted to be a good role model for them.”
These days, Keith is doing great — and the doctors are optimistic his cancer will remain in remission.
He’s training for two more events this summer — the Door County Triathlon in July 2025 and Chicago Triathlon in August 2025 — all with his signature upbeat approach.
“To me, it’s always been about having a positive mental attitude,” he said. “Go at it with an outlook that everything’s going to be great.”
