The Greatest American Hero

Believe it or not I'm walking on air.

Oops, sorry about that earworm.

While Floyd Landis was winning the Tour de France and Tiger Woods was winning that golf thingy, another major sporting event was taking place, and one of my heros was participating in it. My brother Bill participated in his first triathlon in Boulder on Sunday.

Now, let me set the stage. My 36 year old brother used to be a slightly-overweight guy who thought a balanced breakfast consisted of both M&Ms and a Coke. A good weekend involved staying in his dorm room bed all day to watch as many football games as humanly possible while surviving on delivery pizza (and I'm sure there was beer around, too.) Then, a few years ago, he caught the bug. Out went most of the junk food and caffeine, and he started running.

Bill's always participated in sports at a recreational level and he's always been an avid cyclist. Until he started running, he subscribed to the Homer Simpson school of sports: "“Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: It's how drunk you get.”

Now, he's running marathons (New York was his first a few years ago), riding Ride the Rockies, and stuff like that. He is defying our strong Eastern European/Anglo-Irish genetics. His next challange was a triathlon. Might not be such a huge deal for the average crazy athlete, but Bill doesn't swim.

Wait, I take that back. He does swim. He started taking lessons in January.

So, this weekend he got out there and proved to himself that he could do it. And he did. He completed the 1k swim, the 42k bike ride, and the 10k run, and lived to tell about it. His older sister never had any doubt. My brother has a drive and confidence that, well, you just don't see in our family. Hell, this guy does competitive yoga. (Yeah, Bill, she told me. Did you know that yoga wasn't meant to be a competitive sport?) So, my little brother is a rock star. And congratulations again, Bill. I knew you could do it.

(So this crappy free website's photo uploader dealio isn't working. I'll try to add a picture or two later. Grrrr.)