Longmont – Andy Potts stood atop the awards podium at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro last month and heard the national anthem played in his honor. The reigning USA Triathlon champion was ranked third in the World Cup standings last year and competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Olympic rings are tattooed on his right arm.
But on Sunday, Potts was inspired by a 56-year-old grandmother competing in her first triathlon – his mother, Hattit.
It took her 3 hours, 7 minutes, 12 seconds to complete the Great Colorado Triathlon, an Olympic-distance event (1.5-kilometer swim, 40K bike, 10K run) in and around Union Reservoir east of Longmont.
“I just wanted to enjoy the sport he has such a passion for, and to experience more appreciation for the sport,” Hattit said. “I had appreciation before, but I have 120 percent more – the preparation, getting all your gear here, hopping in the water when it’s dawn, then hopping on your bike, crossing your fingers you don’t get a flat tire. …”
Andy would finish second in the elite race with a time of 1:46:20 (1:42 behind fellow Olympian Hunter Kemper), but for Andy it was mother’s day.
“I was really proud of her,” said Andy, who lives in Colorado Springs. “She tackled it like a champ. Her attitude was awesome. She doesn’t have a defeatist attitude. She has a really positive outlook on sports and on life.”
Hattit has lived in Copper Mountain the past 11 years. In the winter she skis almost daily as a member of the resort’s Ambassador program. She has been a competitive runner since the running boom of the 1970s and has been an avid cyclist since moving to Colorado. She recently did a 450-mile bike ride in Glacier National Park.
But despite her son’s aptitude for swimming – he was first out of the water at the Athens Olympics, where he finished 22nd, and on Sunday – she has to force herself to swim. She emerged from the swim portion of Sunday’s race telling folks on the beach, “Andy did not get his talent from me,” and confessed to doing the backstroke part of the way.
She loves Summit County’s bike paths and running trails but hates doing laps in the pool.
“That is not fun, just not fun,” Hattit said. “You’re in the chlorine, you’re back and forth. This swim, at least when I went over on my back to do the backstroke, I said, ‘Aw, look at the sun come up!’ In the pool, I really had to force myself (to train). That hurt me today.”
It was one of the reasons Andy was so proud of her.
“When you don’t come from a swimming background, the swim can be really daunting,” Andy said. “She expressed some of the anxiety that goes through the mind of every triathlete at the beginning of the swim because it’s a mass start, people are invading your personal space, water clarity – it’s not like you can see everything in front of you.”
Hattit was in the last generation of girls raised without Title IX, which was enacted when she was 21 years old. She found running by accident.
“When we were teenagers and in college, sports was not part of our curriculum,” Hattit said. “I never participated in soccer or lacrosse or track. When I was 20, I got married and my husband was a great athlete. I always laughed at him when he went to the track to run. One day my girlfriend and I went, we were just sitting there sort of laughing at him. We decided, ‘What the heck, let’s go jog around this cute little pink track.”‘
Soon she was working her way up to 2 miles, 4 miles, then 10K races. Now middle-aged women like Hattit are fueling the boom in marathon running and triathlon participation.
“Our group of women is getting stronger and stronger,” Hattit said. “We didn’t blow our knees out when we were 16, 17. I think we’re making up for some of the time we didn’t do athletics. Our knees are still pretty good, our hips are still pretty good, arthritis hasn’t set in yet. You look at 60-, 70-year-old women, they’re out there doing it. It’s awesome.”
Andy sees a “symbiotic relationship” between the age-groupers and the elites.
“Where they get some of their inspiration from us, we get inspiration from them,” Andy said. “Hopefully, I inspire my mom, and I know she inspires me because of how active she is. It’s not like she grew up playing sports. She didn’t have the push to get involved as a youngster, but she still really likes everything sports stands for.”
