In Chicago: Lookin' Good in the '80s

By Gregory Jaynes

A hotel employee whose identification tag said he was Kresimir Skoko got on an elevator, dragging an enormous vacuum cleaner. At the next floor, a moist young woman fresh out of Lake Michigan got on with two youthful sports who struggled to settle their bicycles around Skoko's machine. The athletes had the look of the superfit, the whites of their eyes blue white, calves plumped out like loving cups, dazzling teeth set in gums that probably will never know the heartbreak of gingivitis. Skoko had the look of a man grown weary with this age, and the knit of his brow suggested an approaching squall line.

"You been in?" the wet woman was asked.

"Yeah."

The elevator door opened at the sixth floor and the two with bikes wrestled to get them over the vacuum cleaner and into the corridor.

"What's the temp?"

The door tried to close but was defeated.

"I've heard different ones, 58 to 65."

"What did it feel like?"

"Sixty-three."

"Enough!" Skoko cried. "O.K.? Too much!" The door closed. The swimmer looked at Skoko and said, "Sheesh!" Skoko looked at the ceiling.

Grouch, you say? Old crank? On the contrary, sympathy is due the vacuum- cleaner man. The world, and especially this country, has become a hard place for those not yet committed to the overhaul of the flesh, heart and lungs--and none of these were in a rougher spot last week than Skoko.

His employer, the Hotel Continental, was the headquarters for the third annual Chicago Bud Light U.S. Triathlon Series, which attracted 2,400 professional and amateur athletes, the largest gathering a triathlon has pulled in so far. There was not enough excess body fat among the participants to fill a shot glass. One could not traipse a hall anywhere without hearing the tick-tick-tick of a ten-speed coming down hard on the heels. To the uninitiated, a crowd like this can be intimidating. And to an observer not possessed of a similar obsession, ceaseless talk of training techniques, water temperatures and times tends to get a little tedious.

That was for you, Skoko--and all of us like you. Now to business:

It all began when a bunch of jocks in Hawaii fell to arguing about which was the tougher sport, biking, running or swimming. Out of the quarrel was born the first Ironman Triathlon: 15 seemingly crackbrained humans on a 2.4-mile ocean swim followed by a 112-mile bike race followed by a 26.2-mile marathon run. That was in 1978. This year, with the distances in many cases shortened to a so-called tinman's grasp, 1.2 million Americans are expected to take part in 2,100 triathlons. The event is being called the fastest-growing participatory sport in the nation. There is talk of getting it on the Olympics agenda by 1992. It is as ubiquitous as Moonies at an airport.

The people who participate are dead serious and well off. According to Triathlon magazine, their average age is 34, they graduated from college, they earn $45,000 a year and 40% of them carry an American Express card of one color or another. Says Beth Schneider-Needel, one of the organizers of the Chicago race: "It's just a natural extension of the aggression they take to their careers. Because they work, they have to train in the mornings, at lunch and at night. It's hell on your social life, and you don't get much sleep."

Sports manufacturers and retailers got on the wagon at the outset, of course. All it took to jog was a good pair of shoes. Triathlons require racing bikes, cycling shoes, crash helmets, running shoes, a swimming pool or an ocean and all manner of attire. In Chicago, a hotel ballroom was jammed with expensive wares, from high-powered energy drinks to "tri-suits," one-piece jobs that can be worn in all three events. The professional athletes make their money endorsing these items (first place in Chicago paid $2,000; the total purse was $15,000), holding training camps and giving the odd talk.

There are about 100 professional triathletes. Two of the top rated, Scott Molina and Joanne Ernst, answered questions from sincerely curious amateurs the day before the Chicago race.

Scott: "I like anything with caffeine and sugar; Mountain Dew, Coke, coffee."

Joanne: "I don't use a Walkman when I'm training, but my husband does."

Scott: "If I eat anything after 5 o'clock the day before, chances are real good that during the run I'll have to stop. I don't want to stop, so I don't eat."

In Chicago, the course put the contestants in nine-tenths of a mile of Lake Michigan, and had them biking 24.8 miles and running 6.2. The race was to start at 7:30 a.m., but the tick-tick-tick of the ten-speeds had already started in the dark two hours before angry black clouds roiled over the city's big shoulder, releasing heavy rains twice.

The rain stopped, the sun showed, a pistol spat and Lake Michigan fairly boiled with sleek, flashing bodies, the women in green caps, the men in orange. Out of the water and onto the bikes, they hurled themselves through encouraging throngs: "Lookin' good! Keep it up!" One biker wore a helmet that looked like a silver tear cut in half, something Mercury himself might have favored. Off the bikes, pulling on running shoes, they shattered records in tying laces. Then they tore off on foot, the sound of their hearts pounding in their ears. Scott Molina was first to finish for the men, at 1:50:59. Gaylene Clews was the first for the women at 2:03:08. And they could still talk. Not breathlessly. Normally.

"It's definitely a sport of the '80s and '90s," Clews said. "Because of the cross training, you have a lot fewer injury problems, a lot less wear and tear on the muscles and joints."

After the pros came the amateurs, for hours and hours. "I can't explain the high," said one. "It's almost religious."

By noon there were just a few stragglers still out. Some looked beyond endurance, but none were quitting. One woman of some years, going from a walk back into a painful run, spanked her own fanny, as children in her day did when they wanted to hurry up their stick horses.