First, a little history:
My brother is 5 years younger than I. We’ve always been a bit different. I’ve played in several bands and had multi-colored dreadlocks at one point. He’s gone to several universities, earned an MBA and has worn khaki pants at every point. I’m the only member of my family to race triathlons or even 5ks or any other “athletic event”. He was a pretty serious soccer player and got a scholarship for college in soccer, so he has some athletic background.
About a month ago, he sends me an email asking about bicycles. Turns out some of his investment banker coworkers all want to do a local triathlon as a “fitness goal”. They have picked the Tejas Triathlon - 750ms /13b/ 3.1r.
I give him my 2 cents, tell him to hit the local shops and see what fits him, etc, etc… Naturally, being a successful finance type of guy, he wants to spend no more than $400. He winds up with a 10 year old cannondale that is a smidge too big. No problem, he’s only gonna ride it twice before the race anyway.
I believe he swims about 5 times and runs twice a week along with the 2 bike rides. So, he’s super ready. i had other obligations or I definitely would have made the drive to watch this suffer fest.
All in all, he does ok. He called me tonight and here are my favorite quotes:
“that was harder than I thought it would be”
“I wasn’t gonna let the 55 year old lady beat me”
“do people really keep pedaling constantly the whole time during the bike? I just couldn’t do it”
We did talk on the phone for an hour, which is more than I think we have in our lives. I was neat to hear the excitement in his voice and he’s already signed up for another. We may even do one together at the end of august.
“Triathlon, bringing families together”