Ironman Pushes Body to the Outer Limits : Triathlon: Karl Rush, who preferred partying to organized sports, is devoted to breaking the 10-hour barrier in Hawaii.

For those ’79 grads of Camarillo High who have lost track of classmate Karl Rush, here’s an update: Budman has become Ironman.

Rush can pinpoint the instant the transformation began. It was eight years ago, shortly after his second arrest for drunken driving at the tender age of 24, when he admitted to himself that his beer habit was placing him on the fast track to oblivion.

“I wanted to turn my life around,” Rush said, “and go in a different direction.”

And away he went--in the opposite direction. Giving up beer cold turkey and shedding 25 pounds of beer gut, Rush metamorphosed into a triathlete “and changed my life.”

Today, the stocky, chubby kid who never played varsity sports in high school is a buff, hard-core jock-a-holic who has competed in the last three Ironman Triathlon World Championships. Working out has replaced partying as his recreational outlet.

In preparing for last October’s Ironman in Hawaii, Rush, 32, was obsessed with breaking the 10-hour barrier, which is the triathlon version of the four-minute mile. Taking five months off from construction work Rush, who lives in Ventura, punished his 5-foot-7, 165-pound body every day, running eight or nine miles after cycling 60, or cycling 100 miles one day and running 20 the next.

But instead of regarding these intense, all-consuming workouts as the pain-quotient equivalent of nailing a toe to the floor, Rush enjoys them. “I like to push my body beyond what I think it’s capable of,” he said. “It interests me to see how far I can push myself.”

And the Ironman is the acid test. The King Kong of triathlons, the Ironman makes others seem almost wimpy by comparison. Held on the island of Hawaii, which is notorious for heat, humidity and wind, the race pushes the limits of physical endurance with a 2.5-mile ocean swim followed by a 112-mile bike ride, which segues into a full-blown marathon.

For Rush, the ocean swim is always the easy part--”When you’re in shape, you come out of the water feeling really fresh”--but the bike leg “takes a lot out of me, plus you’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to save a little for the run.’ ”

A good distance runner--he completed the 1991 Los Angeles Marathon in 2 hours 50 minutes--Rush considers the bike ride his weakest event, but he turned in a strong performance in this year’s Ironman, finishing a minute under his goal of 5 1/2 hours.

But he made a tactical blunder in the 26.2-mile marathon, going out too hard. “My legs began to tire after 20 miles and I couldn’t hold the (seven-minute-mile) pace,” Rush says. “I should have been at 7:30.”

Rush’s overall time in the Ironman was 10 hours 8 minutes--his personal best by 26 minutes--and he finished 280th out of 1,400 competitors.

This year’s Ironman may be Rush’s last triathlon for a while. “I put so much time and effort into the (race), I have to take a break so I don’t burn out,” Rush said.

Rush might set his sights on ultra-marathons, particularly the Western States 100 in 1994. Currently, he is training for the Feb. 6 Las Vegas Marathon and once again playing the role of the Lonely Guy.

“I have no time for a social life,” said Rush, a bachelor. “It’s hard to date when you’re always pretty tired and have a hard time staying awake.”

Rush’s one regret: He didn’t discover the athlete in him while he was in high school.

“If I’d have known I had the potential to be the caliber of athlete I am now, I probably would have run track or cross-country,” he said. Who knows? “If I would have gotten into running in high school, I’d possibly be a pro triathlete by now.”