Racing Friends

Following is a collection of personal views on the people I train, ride, and race with.

Disclaimer: none of these statements are true.

Nemesis Adam Gruman

Adam must be destroyed. I have been competing with Adam for over 11 years. Adam is an all around endurance master and a very methodical and predictable adversary. His swim is better than mine, and with training he will beat me in the bike and the run. He rarely has a bad day.

In the early years, I beat Adam more often than not, but he has been improving steadily over the years, and he has been beating me a lot recently. In 1995 Adam won all 4 races which I largely attributed to going to school and starting a new job. However, in 1996 he continued his winning by beating me in the Gulf Coast Tri in May. He really has improved! It was not until October 1996 that I finally reversed the trend by beating him in the Great Floridian Ironman. Since then we have been meeting once a year at the Panama City Beach Gulf Coast Triathlon. At our last race there in 1999, I whooped him by 5 minutes.

To quote one of his recent letters: "Not a day goes by on my grueling training regiment that I don't scream from the top of my lungs, 'I must take vengence on the man who humiliated me at the Great Floridian. That man will be stung by my wrath of revenge. I vow to break the soul and spirit of the man known as Daniel Becker.'"

Phil Scandariato

Phil is a master of the bike leg and has an awesome top speed. You may see him at a race with his custom Zipp Blade air-brushed with cavorting dolphins. But Phil's weaknesses are his lack of endurance and his highly variable mental state. He tends to attack the races very hard, and either finishes spectacularly or crashes and burns and does poorly.

Since becoming a father in August of 1996, Phil has quit triathlons and now focuses exclusively on fatherhood.

Jim Bell

The grand old Irishman. He completely beats me everytime, but when it comes to post race drinking, Jim is a lightweight. I look forward to his return as a masters competitor. I only hope when he returns he is still drinking alcohol and not Philip's Milk of Amnesia.

Carl Rosen

How does he do it? A wife, a career, a baby, and triathlons. He set his 1/2 ironman personal record at Gulf Coast in May of 1997, despite his busy schedule.

As of 1999, Carl is still racing and enjoying triathlons. His race attitude is much like mine: train when you can, balance triathlons with the rest of your lide, and enjoy the races.

Shawn Rogers

A great competitor and steadily improving in the long distance races. He has steadily improved his training and his race times have plummeted as a result. He finished the 1999 Gulf Coast in a spectacular time of 4:38:xx.

His real strength is the post race drinking party. He almost drinks as much as I do, but he is young, and with practice, he may one day overtake me in this event.

Steve O'Beirne

Steve O-Reano is good, and I have yet to beat him. However I narrowed the 1/2 ironman gap to 5 minutes and will demolish him in the future.

Steve's racing schedule is a bit light this year (1999), but that is due to sharing his training time with fatherhood. He still is ironman-capable despite the reduced training time.

Steve is good friends with Crackhead Bob, and when asked what he thought of Howard Stern's latest book, Steve replied, "I like it."

Liz O'Beirne

She is an amazing biker and has fantastic endurance. Now, if only she can avoid the injuries and get some good racing done.

I heard once that in the span of one week last year she did a 95 mile solo bike ride, got her foot operated on, did the Disney marathon, had a baby, and ate four Power Bars in one sitting.

I'm sorry, that's a joke. No one would eat four in one sitting.