Failure is not an option for the true athlete. Jacob, my daughter’s husband, proved it doubly Saturday at the Boomtown Triathlon. The sprint begins with a quarter of a mile swim, a 15-mile bike ride and finishes with 3.1 miles of running, walking or dragging yourself across the finish line anyway that you can.
Jacob did not drag across the finish line, but he did drag along a bunch of non-participants and non-athletes. First, he packed up his equipment and his 3- and 5-year-old daughters to drive a couple hours to camp out at our house the night before the race. (My daughter and grandson had gone on a church trip).
Early, the day of the race, he dragged out my husband and 15-year-old grandson, Basil, as his spectators for the event which began at 7:30 a.m.
I agreed to bring in the granddaughters a bit later. His two blondes trailed out of the bedroom a few minutes after him. I wondered if they needed any more sleep.
He shook his head regretfully, “They won’t be sleeping anymore. They are awake for the day.”
Caroline, 5, carried her blankie which she promptly tossed it over me and snuggled beside me on the sofa. Her chatter proved she had no intentions of sleeping. Her sister, Daisy, 3, soon followed and the day began.
Not that the house looked like the previous day had ever ended. I had returned from work to a dining room floor sparkling with glitter. The Pennsylvania granddaughters who are 17, 13 and 9, had pulled out plain cardboard paper crowns to decorate. Traces of their royalty remained in the corners of the house the next day.
I checked in with the support team to learn that Jacob still had a couple swimmers ahead of him. He would be the last to swim in his lane. We had plenty of time to wake-up, dress and grab a bite to eat before we left, arriving in time to cheer his laps back and forth across the pool. Then we ran outside quickly to watch him yank on his biking shoes and helmet, pull out his bike and head for a 15-mile ride up Champagnolle Road.
My husband figured it would take him about 45 minutes. It took him 44. He passed half a dozen or so bikers who had left before him.
Meanwhile, the rest of us waited for him to return. Ginger, 17, sat down on the sidewalk and worked on her summer project: folding thin strips of paper into 1,000 stars. Violet, 13, sat down and soon had Caroline leaning on her. The next thing I knew, both Violet and Caroline were lying flat out on the ground, in the shade, waiting and waiting for the biker to return.
“When will he be here? Nine-year-old Lily wondered.
Grandpa looked at his watch, “About 30 minutes.”
We stood. We sat. We visited with other spectators. We cheered in the other runners and bikers, all the time looking for the Team Chocolate Milk, orange and brown clad figure pedaling up the rise in the street to HealthWorks.
“Biker coming in,” the spotter called as our guy appeared.
“Dismount here, dismount here,” the line marker yelled. He stepped off his bike and ran to the racks.
Running shoes replaced biking sneakers and he was off for another 20 minutes.
The runners and bikers trailed in sweaty and tired from having just finished a a couple hours of hard work. Shirts, shorts, onesies with sponsors names on them and a woman in a knee-length black dress all jogged across the blue mat. Wait a minute, a dress?
“And earrings! And a necklace,” Ginger grinned, shaking her head in disbelief.
I told you nothing deterred an athlete, not even those with a sense of style.
And finally, here came Jacob victoriously running across the blue mat in less than an hour and a half total time — the winning parathlete of the day who just shaved more than 10 minutes off his previous time in the Boomtown Triathalon.
Oh, did I forget to mention that he only has one arm? As I said, nothing deters an athlete, not even the inconvenience having only one arm to swim laps and bike 15 miles up and down the hills on a hot day.
As the sponsors handed out awards, they recognized Jacob as the parathlete of the event with a trophy.
When the third place winner in his age category was announced my husband exclaimed, “Wait! You did better than that!”
And he had, but just one award for each person. And for him, the best award came in having completed the event 10 minutes faster than the first time he participated.
And that is a good report for any athlete any time.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk and Other Columns from the El Dorado News-Times.” Email her at joanh@everybody.org)