(CNN) -- If all goes according to plan, cancer survivor Kyle Garlett will compete in October's Ford Ironman World Championship, a grueling triathlon made up of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run.



Heart transplant recipient and cancer survivor Kyle Garlett will compete in October's Ironman World Championship.



And he'll do it with another man's heart pumping in his chest.



"I don't think there's anybody who wouldn't consider me a success story and a survivor," Garlett said.



His medical issues began in 1989 when he received his first Hodgkin's disease diagnosis as a high school senior. In 1995, during his third battle with the cancer, doctors ceased his chemotherapy treatment when they discovered it had weakened his heart.



Two years later, Garlett learned he had secondary leukemia as a result of chemotherapy to treat the Hodgkin's, and three more years of chemotherapy ensued.



And after five years on the waiting list, he received a new heart in 2006.



Now, the 37-year-old savors his body's capabilities.



"It's kind of like the starving person who all of a sudden finds himself in front of a buffet. And now I've got the buffet. I've got my all-you-can-eat plate, and I'm just loading it up," Garlett said.



A heart transplant may seem extremely daunting, but Garlett saw it as a more hopeful operation than his years of cancer treatments.



"Going in for chemotherapy, as a patient you know what's happening. Your body is being poisoned and you know that when you come out on the other side of it, you're going to have given up something," said Garlett, a sportswriter and motivational speaker living in Marina del Rey, California.



"On the heart transplant, though, it was completely the opposite. I knew that from the day of the transplant on, every day I'd be getting stronger. And they were now doing something that was going to fix me, improve my life."



Garlett, who says he's "not a klutz" but "definitely not a natural athlete," trains about 15 hours a week for October's Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. Closer to race time, he expects to spend 20 to 25 hours a week in intense training to achieve his goal of finishing within the 17-hour time limit.



Garlett was invited to compete in the elite event because organizers believe he "demonstrates the Ironman mantra: Anything is possible," said Blair LaHaye, director of communications for Ironman.



LaHaye said a handful of athletes are invited to take part in the event each year, but their inclusion doesn't reduce the number of slots for those who get in by doing well in qualifying events, or by winning a spot through the Ironman lottery.  Garlett will compete in a half-Ironman or other long-distance event before Kona to validate his selection.



The training and competition are demanding enough for competitors without health issues. But being a heart transplant patient comes with the extra challenge of getting the organ to beat at an acceptable rate.



"When the old heart comes out, all the nerves are severed. And when the donor heart comes in, the nerves are not connected," explained Dr. Jon Kobashigawa, medical director of the UCLA Heart Transplant Program, where Garlett is a patient.



In a person whose heart is intact, "the brain will tell the heart, 'Let's go, start exercising, let's start beating faster,' " Kobashigawa said. A donor heart, however, relies on circulating adrenaline in order to get it going. As a result, heart transplant recipients must warm up thoroughly to get their heart pumping properly.



The "denervated" heart works about 80 to 90 percent as well as a normal heart, Kobashigawa said, "but through exercise, these patients who do strenuous activities, I believe, do get their exercise capacity almost to the normal range, if not normal."



It's also possible, doctors say, for
What will Garlett compete in? Who will compete in the Kona triathlon? What poses an extra challenge for transplant patients?
Ironman World Championship, Kyle Garlett of getting the organ to beat at an acceptable rate.
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