Playing Through

Daniel Vertiz bikes the lonely road. (Photo by Thomas Hackett)

People who compete in triathlons have their form of masochism, and I have mine. Theirs is to get up at 5 on a sweltering Sunday morning and swim, bike, and run more than 30 miles before most people have toasted their first Pop-Tart. Mine is to get up at 5am, watch them swim, bike, and run – and then berate myself for not getting off my ass and competing myself.

A couple of years ago, Tatiana Vertiz had those feelings while watching the Ironman competition on television. The difference between she and I is, a year and a half after watching the famously grueling race, Vertiz herself was on the big island of Hawaii, swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running a marathon (26.2 miles), all in less than 11 hours, putting her among the elite triathletes in the world, whereas I was strenuously resolving to cut back on Pop-Tarts.

Vertiz, a senior at Southern Methodist University and originally from San Antonio, knew that a full-on Ironman was not advisable, not at the age of 19, not when she'd competed in only a few shorter course events, not when her body is still developing. But in sports, as in life, our virtues are invariably connected to our faults. If Vertiz weren't so headstrong about competing in an Ironman against her better judgment, she also wouldn't have the discipline to get up at 4:30 every morning and train more than 20 hours a week, with an eye toward competing in the 2012 London Olympics.

"Actually, I'm still sort of discovering the sport," she told me after placing seventh among the women at the recent Capital of Texas Triathlon with what for her was only a so-so time of two hours and 24 minutes in the Olympic distance. "A couple of years ago, I didn't know anything about triathlons. I had watched the Ironman on TV. That was it. But I knew I wanted to do one – to basically just finish. Once I started training, I guess the competitor in me took over. I wanted to beat the world."

That's going to take some doing, of course. The top women at the Cap Tex Triathlon beat Vertiz by 15 minutes, which ain't nothing. Then again, Vertiz is young, and endurance athletes don't typically peak until their late 20s. She also has someone chasing her – her 14-year-old brother, Daniel. After seeing his sister compete in Hawaii, Daniel decided to try a triathlon himself. The Austin race was his first.

"I felt like I was going to puke in the water," Daniel told me after finishing the race seven minutes behind his big sister. "I was like: 'Wow, this is hard. How am I going to finish this race?' But I just pushed forward."

Pushing forward ... that seems to be the key here. "On then, and though you slowly go, yet, howsoever, go," wrote the 17th century British poet Robert Herrick. Good advice, although in the case of Daniel and Tatiana Vertiz, going slow doesn't seem to be part of the equation.

Please direct all love letters and hate mail to playingthrough@austinchronicle.com.