NASCARs Jimmie Johnson completes Nascar driver Jimmie Johnson makes his way to his station before competing in the running portion of the HITS Triathlon in Naples on Saturday, January 10, 2015. The casual fan probably missed him. He emerged from the ocean after a long swim around 7:30 a.m. wearing a light blue cap and a wet suit. Two-and-a-half hours later, he finished a bike ride on Vanderbilt Beach Road, near the shore, with a dark helmet and sunglasses. And when the race had run its course, at the finish line, he looked like everyone else looked: exhausted. Competing in the HITS Triathlon Series in Naples on Saturday, Jimmie Johnson mostly kept his head down. To spectators, Johnson may have been just another swimmer, biker and runner, perhaps distinguishable by his close-kept beard or the noticeable bags under his eyes. So when he trudged through the sand after his swim, dismounted from his bike, or jogged across the finish line, many watching didn’t know that they had just seen, in the flesh, the greatest NASCAR driver in the world. “Get outta here. That’s pretty cool,” said Alan McEacharan, 56, when told that Johnson was competing. McEacharan stood near the finish line, several hours into the race, where word began to get out that Johnson was participating. Earlier in the day, during the swim portion, spectators seemed to be mostly unaware of Johnson’s presence Standing on the beach Saturday morning, Debbie Defuria, 56, was there to cheer for her husband, Mike Defuria, competing in the half triathlon. Debbie Defuria didn’t know that, just minutes earlier, Johnson had run past her. “Really?” Defuria said. “Wow.” By his appearance, Johnson does seem easy to miss. He stands an average 5-foot-11, weighing a slender 175 pounds. Even his name doesn’t evoke a distinction. One spectator, when told Johnson was competing, said, “Oh, the football coach?” No matter the awareness of the fans, this was a significant day for Johnson. For the first time, he completed a half triathlon — a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and 13.1-mile run. He finished in 4 hours and 42 minutes, in 15th place among the men. In a brief post-race interview with the Daily News, Johnson said he wanted to finish about 10 minutes faster, but he missed his first turn during his bike ride and pedaled about a mile in the wrong direction. “I was hoping to do 4 (hours), 30 (minutes),” Johnson said. “Without those extra couple of miles, I think I would have been there.” Johnson said he was “really happy” to complete the race. Doubling over just after the finish line, he was visibly gassed. He sprawled on the ground while he greeted his family, before signing autographs and posing for pictures. “It was a long and lonely 70 miles,” Johnson said. Not everyone was unaware of Johnson’s participation. Just before the triathlon started, Johnson tweeted, “Let’s do this,” with a photo of his bike. During the race, he had some followers. Ginny Cox, 36, attending the race to cheer on her friends, used the race’s tracker app on her phone to track Johnson’s progress. “My three (tracks) are my two friends and Jimmie Johnson,” Cox said. Two of Johnson’s friends and fellow NASCAR drivers, Josh Wise and Landon Cassill, did the half-triathlon with Johnson. Colleen Cassill, Landon’s mother, said the drivers’ all participated because “they’re competitive people all the way around.” “I think it’s about wanting to do their personal best,” said Kaitlan Cassill, Landon’s wife. McEacharan, a marathon runner from New Hampshire, said completing a triathlon is “quite an athletic accomplishment,” noting that NASCAR drivers aren’t often regarded as the prototypical athlete. “To swim, bike, and then run a marathon, that’s crazy,” McEacharan said. Johnson, who swam in high school, said he’s “always had an interest” in triathlons, adding that he’d like to complete a full one in the future. He said finishing the marathon is the “proof” that NASCAR drivers, at least a few of them anyway, are athletes. “People who say (they aren’t) have never sat in the car,” Johnson said.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 16:50:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015