By Laura Mazur
Community Post
To go from Minster to Hawaii, it takes strength. Or you just have to be an iron man.

Minster native Randy Stueve does indeed have the strength. He recently competed in an Ironman triathlon in Tempe, Ariz. and qualified for the Ironman World Triathlon Championship in Hawaii.
“Being there with the best of the best is unbelievable. There are people from every country in the world—the best in every age group. They motivate you to really do your best and put forth your best effort. Hawaii will be even more so.”
Stueve, the son of Ben and JoAnn Stueve of Minster, is currently a resident of Durango, Colo., and is getting ready for the Ironman competition in Hawaii, which is scheduled for Oct. 11.
At 9 hours, 33 minutes, Stueve completed the April 12 Arizona race more than 45 minutes faster than his previous best.
With 350 triathletes in his age group, he was second fastest out of the pack. And out of 2,000 total athletes in the Tempe triathlon, Stueve placed 25th.
Not too bad for a boy from Minster who grew up being all about football and baseball. Now he lives in a town where people focus their attention on cycling and triathlons.
“It's an individual sport. You're training by running and riding. You can't chitchat. You have to push yourself and you have to push yourself by yourself.”
But Stueve admits he doesn't train completely by himself. He decided to enlist in the help of a coach as a birthday present to himself in January 2006. Setting up benchmarks, qualifying in the Ironman competition was scheduled for year five of his plans. He is definitely well ahead of schedule and his own race. But then again, do you expect anything less from an iron man?
Swimming four times per week with a master's group and getting up between 4:30 and 5 a.m. to bike before work and then hitting the treadmill for a run after work, Stueve puts in the workout for the work he puts in at the race.
He says he enjoys running the most out of the events in the competitions because he doesn't slow down.
For the October competition in Hawaii, Stueve will be doing a good bit of this in the last leg of the race after he swims 2.4 miles of ocean and bikes 112 desert miles. The final portion is when he will run 26.2 miles along the Hawaiian coast.
In order to get ready for the competition, Stueve will be training, training and doing a little bit more training. He says a priority in training is not missing a workout.
“I exercise at least three times a week just for my general health. I make that my first priority after my job,” he says.
Stueve is a pharmacy operations manager at Mercy Regional Medical Center, in Durango, Colo.
The athlete got into the wild world of triathlon competitions while living in Michigan after hearing about some nurses who he worked with who were going to compete in a smaller scale competition. He figured if they could do it, so could he.
And he competed, but ended in a result he describes as “a disaster.”
Not really knowing how to swim, he jokes that he “managed not to drown” and then riding on a used bike he bought from a friend, he got a flat tire during the race. Not knowing how to change the tire, he continued to the finish line riding on a rim.
“When I reached the finish line, I felt like I had won. Then I wanted to do one right.”
The following six weeks he learned how to swim, bike and run to endure an Olympic distance race he next competed in. This included a 1,500 meter swim, a 4 km bike ride and a 10k run.
A race that summer ended up causing him time in training, racing and later pain when he injured his knee, causing him to need surgery, rehabilitation and time off from his beloved triathlons.
As he got back into training for the races, he bought a triathlon bike, a wet suit and got a sponsor, trisports.com, which is a Tucson-based triathlon support organization.
Through and through, across the nation he has traveled and will continue to travel and compete, Stueve says his Minster background stays with him in all his training and his racing.
“The people in the area have a great work ethic. You take that with you wherever you go.”