Triathlon Participants Rise to the Challenge

For Jim, Tia and Luke Alexander, Sunday’s Pat-Triathlon at was more than a race.

It was another installment in a four-year-old family tradition that began when the Alexanders' elder son, Clay, challenged his father to compete in the three-mile bike around the high school campus, the one-mile run and a 200-yard swim in the aquatic center.

“[Clay] did it the first year,” said Tia Alexander, who plays the role of family photographer and cheerleader, “then he bet his dad that he couldn’t do it, so the next year my husband got into shape and did it with him.

“And now my husband has been doing it with the two sons every year.”

Before that friendly family challenge, Jim Alexander’s athletic prowess was limited to the golf course, his wife said.

“Now he does it every year and my husband does Olympic distance triathlons,” she said. “He’s hooked. He was a golfer; he’s not a swimmer or a runner.”

Both Jim and Luke Alexander finished the race Sunday, along with the other 130-plus competitors, who braved conditions so windy that organizers had difficulty erecting the start banner outside the school’s field house.

Inside, a long line snaked around the building as competitors lined up to register for the race.

Among them was Stevenson history teacher and basketball coach Pat Ambrose, who said he trained a bit for the running and biking parts of the race, but didn’t do much swimming.

“I just want to finish, “ he said. ‘That swimming part at the end will be very tough on me.”

The swimming event also looked tough on 16-year-old Langston Fitts of Buffalo Grove, who crossed the finish line dripping wet, but with a huge smile on his face.

He said he and his friends have done the race for the last three years.

“I’m out of shape this year,” he said.

Out of shape, maybe, but a happy finisher nonetheless.

See attached PDF for complete competition results.