London is Calling to Paratriathlete

If you set a goal and pursue it with passion, you will attract people who want to help you, Brandon Adame has discovered. “And once you have accomplished your goal,” he says, “you will never know whom you inspire to do something greater than they thought they could ever do.”

Brandon offers up these life lessons with such cheerfulness, such infectious energy, that it’s not surprising he has attracted a growing circle of helpers and friends.

“My ultimate goal is to get to Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and get gold in the Paralympics,” says the 30-year-old blind triathlete, who lived in West U until he was 14.

But his more immediate challenge is to compete at the 2013 PruHealth World Triathlon Grand Final, a 750-meter swim, 12.6-mile bike race and 5K run set for Sept. 13 in London. He is one of only two totally blind members invited to join Team USA. Ron Stitt, an experienced triathlete, says Brandon is the most accomplished entirely blind athlete he knows of in the Houston area.

Brandon Adame trains with guide Ron Stitt in front of West University Elementary. (Photo: Kevin Long, www.gulfcoastshots.com)

Brandon’s condition dates from birth. He had eight eye operations in his first six months of life. During boyhood he had some right-eye vision, but when he turned 15 changes in eye shape closed that limited window on the world. He attended a pre-K program for the visually impaired at West University Elementary and, later, A.A. Milne Elementary and Lamar High School. He currently lives with his parents, David and Marilynn Adame (pronounced ah-DAH-mee), in southwest Houston and trains full time.

Brandon started running track at Grady Middle School and got serious about it at the Texas School for the Blind in Austin. He ran his first half-marathon in January 2006. The experience left him with a throbbing left knee, but that didn’t prevent him from moving up to full marathons.

For the last three years he has run in the Chevron Houston Marathon, his best time being five hours and 15 minutes in 2012. In triathlons, he’s strongest at running, weakest at swimming.

His preparations for London include a six-day-per-week training regimen. A recent Thursday found him at Memorial Park with Ron Stitt and another volunteer guide, Trent Stephens, plus father David, who serves as head cheerleader and aide-de-camp.

Bike training is the morning’s task. Brandon, who carries 135 pounds – not an ounce of which appears to be fat – on a lean 5-foot-7 frame, sits hunched over the handlebars on the back of the tandem bicycle. Trent, in the front seat, serves as the eyes for the pair as they speed repeatedly around the park’s South Picnic Loop.

Ron, looking on, says he met Brandon two years ago in Memorial Park. “He would run down here, so I would run a couple of miles with him; other people would run a couple of miles with him.” Ron now trains with him three times a week. He’ll guide Brandon in the London triathlon.

Brandon Adame practices on the stationary bicycle at a West U fitness center. (Photo: Kevin Long,www.gulfcoastshots.com)

For the running and swimming legs of a triathlon the blind athlete and his guide are joined by a 3-foot tether. The guide’s first job is to make sure the athlete doesn’t get injured. Cracks in the pavement, potholes, drop-offs on the edge of a trail are real perils for a blind runner, and Brandon acknowledges he worries about them when he runs. That doesn’t prevent him from competing in two triathlons most months.

The guides also help Brandon with his race strategy, pacing him so he doesn’t wear himself out early and have nothing left to finish strong. “He feeds off the crowd,” Ron says. “So when somebody calls out his name, he gets into that six-minute-mile pace and you know that won’t last to the end.”

Brandon laughs and admits his enthusiasm can get the best of him.

For the London triathlon Brandon has to pay all his own expenses and has created a website, brandonusa.com, to raise the $18,400 he and his parents need to make the trip. Donors of $30 or more get a “Team Brandon” t-shirt.

Trent, who works as a professional fitness trainer, uses Brandon to inspire his clients when they complain about the pain without which there is no gain.

“He has such a huge drive,” he says. “It’s one of those things, if Brandon can do it, what is your excuse? It’s contagious.”