Another reason to love the sport of triathlon, the good people!

We just returned a few days ago from Colombia, MD for the first annual IrongirlMD triathlon. Also, we took an extra day to take the tourist look at our Nationals capital. The triathlon went off in great fashion with over 1800 ladies being registered is was quite a show. Just to think a few years ago women only represented 15% of the sport, now close to 40%. Does this mean that there will be no men in the sport in another few years? Don't think so, but my feeling has always been that the more people that come into our sport the healthier our population will get. Simply stated it is truly a healthy lifestyle sport and you can't help but be healthy if you only do minimal training. It was also good to see young fathers taking care of the kids while mommy competes. I had the opportunity to visit with one of these fathers from Towson, MD, Donald Discepolo, who was watching the kids while mommy did the swim, bike and run thing. He was very nice to talk to and very supportive of his wife in this endeavor. Which brings my other point to this blog, man are there nice people associated with this sport! Along with meeting Donald, we also spent time with our new friend in D.C., Michelle Jezycki. She works for the Senate side of the Government and took the time to show us around the Senate floor and other interesting areas of where she works. This was a very interesting tour since the staff led tours are much better than the tour guide type, plus we knew Michelle and that made it even better. What a nice person she is and we felt our country is in good hands, if only a fraction of the people are as nice and dedicated to their jobs within our government agencies. Not only does she work for the government in her day job, but she also has started her own travel agency specializing in triathlon related travel. Through her hard work we will be able to offer our athletes a better travel alternative to the events we produce. Her company, www.tritheworld.com, is the up and comer in the industry. Look for it on many of the major triathlon event sites. The best thing is that she is a very honest person that will spend your travel money like it was hers' with an attitude of "you will get the best deal possible." The other good thing here is that this is not a paid announcement, it is from our heart and knowledge of Michelle that we offer this opinion.

It was also good to see our long time friend Robert Vigorito(Vigo), the race director for IrongirlMD and long time race director for other events in that area. He is the king of race directing in that part of the country and as one competitor told me, "he is the best race director in the world." Can't argue with a satisfied customer, since my dad always said, "the customer is always right." We had a good visit with Fred Sommers, race director for some major races in Florida and one of my favorite people in the sport. He produces the Great Floridian Ironman distance triathlon. Since I have done this race three times I would say it is one of my favorites. We had the opportunity to work side by side with Judy Molnar, Irongirl head cheese and that was fun to tug the carpet together one more time. We are all looking forward to the Irongirl series for 2007 and seeing it grow.

In conclusion, this trip kept my interest and enthusiasm up for the sport, but also gave me further motivation to study the American Presidents more. To see all that the founding fathers did for the country and us, really makes you stop and think. What the hell is going on now and is that what they were thinking of? I really don't think so, but I also know that it was stated by more than one of these great men, "democracy only lasts and continues to grow and prosper if it is treated with honesty and repect, if not then it destroys itself."

Long live Kinky, the new leadership for Texas,

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