Lisa Bentley is an 11-time Ironman champion and one of Canada’s all-time best triathletes— a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that the upbeat athlete from Alderwood often finds it hard to breathe.

Bentley has a mild strain of cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes frequent lung infections, along with coughing fits that can last for hours. But she also has the determination and mental toughness to persevere, no matter the obstacles.

Growing up, Bentley ran track and field at St. Ambrose Catholic School, but the serious-minded student didn’t think she could commit to high school sports and maintain the grades for a university scholarship. A math teacher at Michael Power/St. Joseph High School saw her potential and encouraged Bentley to compete in an upcoming race. She won, and was convinced that she could excel in the classroom and on the track.

Her illness was a factor early on. “When I was a kid, I was sick all the time. I was on antibiotics all winter long,” Bentley remembers. Her family thought she had particularly bad allergies, until her older sister was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and all four siblings were tested. Bentley had full lung capacity as a child, but she was susceptible to infection—a cold bug that would knock an otherwise healthy person out for a few days put her on medication for six weeks.

The budding triathlete loved to be active. She spent hours swimming at Alderwood Pool, running along Lakeshore Boulevard and Browns Line, and biking around a deserted Sherway Gardens parking lot on Sunday afternoons. Bentley first tried triathlon—a grueling race consisting of a 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride, and 42 km run—at the University of Waterloo, where she swam and cycled as cross-training while recovering from her frequent running injuries. “I just thought, this was such a fun thing. The whole body is involved,” she said. After graduation, Bentley scheduled training and competitions around teaching high school mathematics and computer science, before her early success inspired her to focus full-time on sports.

She competed at home and abroad with Canada’s World Championship Elite Team, earning the chance to represent her country at the 1995 Pan American Games in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The Canadian triathlon team won gold. “To hear the national anthem was unbelievable, and filled with so many emotions,” Bentley said. “To be part of a big sports field like that, where you’re racing for your country, that was my Olympics.”

Along with respiratory challenges that sometimes leave her coughing through an entire race, cystic fibrosis causes Bentley to lose sodium more quickly than the average athlete—a big problem when sweating through a triathlon. She also frequently ruptured her weakened Achilles tendons. “Many times I race unwell,” she said. But, she persevered. “If I didn’t do it because of cystic fibrosis, I’m going to do nothing. So I have to keep going.”

Bentley began her impressive global Ironman run by placing ninth at the 1997 Ironman World Championships, notching the second fastest debut time in history. She finished among the top ten at five different world championships, and peaked with a third place result in 2006. She came up through the ranks with fellow Canadians Lori Bowden and Heather Fuhr, who competed against one another as hard as they rooted for each other. “We weren’t superstars, we were just Canadian kids around the same age, pretty like-minded,” she said.

In national competition, Bentley captured 11 Ironman championships in eight years, the last coming after battling a heel injury at Ironman Canada in 2007. That tally includes three Canadian titles and five straight Ironman Australia wins. “It feels amazing when you can execute everything you’ve done in training,” said Triathlete magazine’s 2004 triathlete of the year.

Bentley’s relentless preparation gives her the physical and mental strength to adjust her race strategy if her illness flares up. She goes into every race knowing that she isn’t in perfect health, and that she may have to slow to a crawl to get through it. During one triathlon, with lungs burning and her body near collapse from sodium loss, she barely had the strength to stumble across the finish line and into the medical tent. “But I finished the race, because I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do this again,” she said. “I can’t quit. I just can’t. I finish what I start—no matter how hard it is.”

Her success is a validation of her hard work. “When I would cross the finish line and win, I thought of it as having the physical ability, nutrition and the mental toughness to problem solve and battle all the elements, and battle with my subconscious telling myself I can’t do it,” Bentley said. Learning to lose graciously was an equally valuable experience, she added.

The veteran athlete drew on her two decades of professional racing experience to provide colour commentary on CTV for the recent men’s and women’s Olympic marathons. Bentley has also been part of the broadcast team at numerous triathlon and Ironman events, and regularly gives motivational speeches to school groups and running clubs. But her most important audiences are youth with cystic fibrosis. “Cystic fibrosis is a gift. I can touch all these people’s lives and give them hope,” Bentley said. “For (young people) to see an athlete traveling the world and racing, that gave them hope. Of course, I started every race wanting to win, but I started to see my racing as having a bigger purpose.” She now promotes the need for research into cystic fibrosis as part of the Cure4CF campaign.

As a fitness and running coach in Caledon, Bentley encourages her clients to develop a lifelong love of sports. “It’s so amazing to see the evolution from non-athlete to athlete,” she said of her students. “That’s the goal for all my athletes—I want them to do sports forever.”

In 2009, Bentley lost significant lung function and ended up on an IV after coughing up blood during a race. She was forced to take a few steps back and get well, but still competes in triathlons and foot races, finishing the 2011 Boston Marathon with a time of 2:58. Her faith grounds her and helps her do her best. “God gave me talents, and this is my path,” she said. Bentley is grateful for her wide-ranging career, and for the advances in medicine that allowed her to compete at a high level. She is proud to be a role model for her students, clients, and people with cystic fibrosis. “If I quit, what kind of example is that?” she said.

Bentley is flattered that her career merits recognition from her hometown. “I always wanted to win, every time, but I never looked for acknowledgement. (The Hall of Fame) is an amazing bonus for me,” she said. “The first thing I thought of was my mom (Mary Laffradi) and dad (Albert, who passed away last year)—especially my dad, because he loved sports so much. I’m thinking how proud he’d be.

“I love sports, and I guess it comes down to what my parents always said: you do your best with what you have, every single time. That’s always been what I’ve done my entire career—turn negatives

into positives.”