BELMONT (CBS) -  At 17-years-old, Jason Fowler was one of the best motocross riders in his class. But a day of practice changed everything.

“My bike stopped, hit the rock and sent me flying. I landed on my head,” Fowler told WBZ-TV’s Jonathan Elias.

Fowler’s mother Luanne was the one who would tell her son he would never walk again.

But she quickly told him something else that he remembers now, 21 years later.

“We’re going to give you two weeks to feel bad for yourself and then it’s time to get on with it,” his mother said.

And he did get on with it.

Six months after his accident, he started racing wheelchairs.

He finished the Boston Marathon, one of 30 he completed but he got bored with that and started doing Iron Mans.

Fowler trained 25 hours a week to get ready and stuck to a diet of mainly smoothies.

All that training paid off because he qualified for the Iron Man Race in Hawaii.

The race consists of a 24 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26 mile run. Only a few paraplegic athletes are allowed in the race and he was one of them.

When he finished, Fowler was crowned the Iron Man Champion of the world.