Monday Morning Quarterback

Nothing like having an overly motivated brother- in-law in your life when you are trying to lay around on a Sunday at your parent’s lake house and relax.  On the Fourth of July while the extended O’Brien family ate drank and slept, my sister’s husband Mike Bosl hooked up his compu-trainer and pedaled away to nowhere for 5 hours and then went for a “light” run of 15 miles, all in the name of preparation for the Lake Placid IRONMAN Triathlon several weekends ago.

In real life Mike is a trader for Citigroup in Manhattan, which is an extremely high stressed environment and for most people would be enough of a challenge but Mike is a glutton for punishment. His average day is enough to exhaust me for a week waking up at 4am to train, working a full day and then training again until 10:30 at night. The weekends bring no relief as you can find him biking along the West Side Highway to 9W and up to Bear Mountain. 

When my sister first started dating Mike ten years ago their common interest was basketball as he was a walk-on at Villanova and she was a two sport athlete at Barry University.  Nothing in his athletic background suggested future triathlete stud unless you take into account that he won two NY State basketball championships at St. Dominic’s High School and everyone knows that NY has great hoops.  My sister can only blame herself for Mike’s introduction to IRONMAN as she originally bet him that he couldn’t complete one.  Who knew two and a half years later he would have two half triathlons and two full completed IRONMAN’s to his credit. 

On Sunday the phone started ringing with hourly updates from Lake Placid and 9 hours and :58 minutes later Mike completed the IRONMAN finding himself in 44th place out of 2,500 competitors and 8th place in his division 30-35 year olds, which if you know anything about IRONMAN it is the toughest age group.  To top off the event Mike punched his ticket the next morning for the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii on October 10, 2009.  Not only that he beat out pro athletes.  Are you kidding me?  In only his second full IRONMAN TRIATHALON HE QUALIFIED FOR KONA! How does a trader with a job that drives most people to drink find himself 7 days before his wedding tearing up the IRONMAN field?  DESIRE! If you haven’t actually seen it I suggest you hunt Mike down and look at his face, it is written all over it.  Desire to succeed; desire to be the best, desire to chase his dream.  So many people talk about their dreams, but few actually pursue and realize their dreams.  Luckily for Mike his wife realizes that the window of opportunity for dreams is small and supports him in his fanatical pursuit of KONA IRONMAN.

If you have never been to the finish line of an IRONMAN I suggest you find one near you, sit for an hour and cheer for those competitors as they cross the line, it is awe inspiring.  Just ask Mike and Steph who returned to the finish line 6 hours after Mike completed the race so that they could cheer FDNY member Matt Long to the finish line 2 minutes before time expired to be crowned an IRONMAN.  Four years ago Matt was an IRONMAN in 11:19, three and a half years ago he was dead after being run over by a NYC bus and this year he walked the marathon part of the IRONMAN because he can no longer run.  So what did you do with your Sunday? 

FOR NOW I AM PACKING MY BAG FOR HAWAII AND WONDERING WHAT DOES A GUY HAVE TO DO TO GET SOME SPONSORSHIP?!!!