The New York Times se ha dado cuenta

Me he tropezado con una entrevista a un triatleta aficionado de cuarenta y pico años en el mejor periódico de Estados Unidos

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times
La foto: (In Pittsburgh, Dr. Ken Katz, 40, swim-trains during his lunch break)

If Mr. Goodman were younger, he might have joined a gym or played soccer, as he did in college. Instead he started doing triathlons. In a year, he lost 17 pounds and added 6 pounds of muscle, and is now able to run one mile in 6 minutes 30 seconds. He says he feels like a 20-year-old again.
“I’m not looking for my fountain of youth, but I am trying to stay as young as I can for as long I can,” said Mr. Goodman, now 40. “I didn’t realize how bad of shape I was in.”
Mr. Goodman is part of a generation of athletic, type-A men who are entering middle age and trying to hold on to their youth through triathlons — a race that combines swimming, biking and running. The sport has exploded by 51 percent since 2007, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, and men in their 40s are one of the fastest growing segments in the sport, accounting for one-third of the 1.2 million triathletes.
The phenomenon is not restricted to Americans. In London, there’s even a term for triathletes pushing middle age: Mamils, which stands for middle-aged men in Lycra.
Skip Gilbert, former executive director of USA Triathlon, the sport’s governing body, said he believes the craze started when the triathlon became part of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Before then, "the perception was that triathlon was only for Ironmen,” he said, referring to the longest and toughest category of triathlons, which involves swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running a 26.2-mile marathon.
“But shorter Olympic distance races at the Games gave more athletes a way to embrace the sport,” Mr. Gilbert said. What used to take 15 hours with Ironman competitions can now be done in as few as 3 hours in an Olympic distance race. A sprint triathlon, the shortest type, typically involves a half-mile swim, a 13-mile bike ride and a 3-mile run. “The sport gained momentum almost instantly,” he said.
In 2000, there were 50 USA Triathlon clubs. Now there are 831 throughout the country. In 2000, there were 229 USA Triathlon-certified coaches; now there are 1,800, according to USA Triathlon.
Some of the growth in the sport comes from aging long-distance runners, who switched over because of injuries, according to Dr. Michael J. Neely, the medical director at NY Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy, based in Manhattan. The shock on joints associated with running gets worse with age.
“Triathlons are much better for the body than long-distance running,” Dr. Neely said. “With triathlons, when you are injured running, you can still swim and bike.”
Ken Katz, 40, a doctor in Pittsburgh, had been running since high school and participated in one marathon and several half-marathons. But he stopped 10 years ago when he developed what he called “knee woes.”
“I got banged up and decided to diversify into triathlons, where you have the combination of the other sports to take a little of that pressure off specific injuries,” he said.
Soon, Dr. Katz was investing in bikes, traveling to races and hiring a coach.
That’s not to mention all the accessories and lifestyle brands that now cater to him and other triathletes. They can now buy TriSwim’s shampoo to remove chlorine, and sports drinks like Hammer Nutrition Heed, which is sold on Web sites like One Tri. There are aerodynamic helmets and sunglasses made for triathlons, as well as wet suits and tri-specific running sneakers made by K-Swiss, Asics, Zoots and Newton.
At Placid Planet, a bicycle and triathlon shop in Lake Placid, N.Y., the new must-have accessories are Zipp wheels and compression tights. “Zipp wheels are an aerodynamic carbon wheel that increase speed by reducing drag on the wheel,” said Kenny Boettger, the owner. Compression tights and socks, he said, help athletes recirculate oxygen and blood. “This is the big thing right now and it works,” he said.

Parece que la entrevista, salvo pequeñas diferencias, me la hicieron a mi