---

We just can’t relate
to this triathlete

THE best part about triathlon (which, incidentally, means "three times the athlon") is that this is one sport in which the average fan can truly, deeply, and on an intimately personal level, relate to the pros.

No, not as they keep saying, that you can compete on the same course under the same conditions as your heroes, as so many are doing today at the JAL Honolulu Triathlon.

But the average Joe can really identify with this sport in that even the best in the world, the event's elite, the winners' winners all end up looking like they're about to drop dead.

Even the fittest finishers, by the end of the race, are reduced to the state of overheated former couch potatoes looking for a place to die.

This is a sport whose cousin -- Ironman -- made its name on the image of exhausted fallen competitors crawling toward the finish line.

Yesterday, at the 2005 ITU Honolulu Triathlon World Cup in Waikiki, there was a women's finisher chicken-skin shivering at the end, EMTs hovering over her, her system shot like a car's radiator gone bad. And a men's finisher -- you know, I had never seen this before -- actually foaming at the mouth.

So, no, we have no idea what it's like to hit a curveball in Yankee Stadium. But anyone who has ever exercised has felt like he couldn't take another step.

In that sense, even triathlon's all-time greats don't seem so untouchable. They swim better and run harder and have cooler bikes. And they can change shoes faster than Mr. Rogers. They do things we could never do.

But at the finish line we can look at them and see ourselves.

Which probably explains why so many triathlon fans look the part. Many in the crowd wore shirts from the events they'd been in. Some even wore spandex to watch, yesterday, and runner's hats, and perched on race bikes, eating power bars, drinking Gatorade. The coolest among them actually exercised during the event.

(Of course, there was also the guy with the giant tattoo on his back of a topless woman riding a dinosaur being watched by vultures. Maybe he's a new fan.)

AND THEN THERE is yesterday's women's champ, Australia's Emma Snowsill, who now holds the second-year event record of 2 hours, 4 minutes, 39 seconds.

So much for relating to the greats.

She may have broken a sweat, but it was probably just out of courtesy. At the end, she didn't collapse or crawl or require medical attention or even have the decency to grimace, like a normal person. No, she just slowly bent down, picked up a bottle of water (beating the water-givers; she didn't even need assistance). And smiled.

She had a few new blisters, bleeding, open to the pink. Didn't seem to notice. Wasn't even breathing hard. About 15 seconds after finishing she was doing a TV interview, breathing normally, speaking coherently, laughing pleasantly.

It was ... it was just wrong.

I asked her if she was even tired.

No, not bad. She really didn't feel like she was going to get her heart beating too much during the run, she explained.

"It was just one of those days where you just can't get that burn going," she said.

Yeah. One of those days.

I don't know. I think I "felt the burn" writing that last sentence.

The incredible thing was that, following a 1.5K swim and a 40K bike ride, she'd put together a 10K run that caught fellow Aussie Loretta Harrop, who'd built a lead of more than 30 seconds. It was Harrop's first race since the Olympics, the silver medalist said. She was going to go hard and see how long it took until she "blew up."

Harrop had dominated the swim, bounding out of the water with ferocity. Then she attacked the bike course. Just attacked it. How fast was she flying?

"Flat out," she said.

It was awesome to see.

Snowsill caught her early in the run, made a big move and kept it. Harrop crossed the finish line in second, limped a few steps with one shoe, doused water over her head, made that face triathlon finishers make.

Now Harrop, she looked tired. Was she tired? She looked tired.

She rolled her eyes with what little energy she had left.

"Of course I'm tired," she said.

Yes! Exactly. Thank you. Thank you very much.

That's triathlon.

"I wasn't under any illusions today about how my run was going to go," Harrop said.

But Snowsill again. Surely, she had energy left over, and lots of it. What else might she do with the rest of the day?

"Maybe I'll go out there and surf," she said. "I've been looking out at the waves the last two days."

She smiled. She meant it. She was ready to go.

I fear this sport is losing its common touch.