When Frank Cortese competed in his first triathlon in the 1990s, he didn't realize at the time how much it would shape his life moving forward.
He quit a cushy job in the restaurant business in 2006 to coach people training for triathlons and found another talent was doing the heavy lifting of running the races.
Cortese, co-owner of Tri-Now Endurance and race director for Sunday's TriWaco Triathlon, said his life organizing triathlons happened.
“I call it my second act,” he said. “I never intended to have a calendar with 14-15 events, but it happened organically. It works well with the technical side of things.”
Cortese took over organizing the Waco event a little more than 10 years ago.
He said the event was growing at a good pace and had more than 1,000 participants before COVID hit and shut it down for a year. When things reopened, he saw participation drop by nearly 30%.
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“Fast forward to 2024, the numbers are coming back, but it's a whole new group of people,” Cortese said. “The 30% we lost, 30% new people entered the community. We couldn't assume people knew what TriWaco was, but we felt we had to reintroduce ourselves.”
WATCH NOW: (July 2023) TriWaco returned to town on Sunday for its 14th year. This year's race ended with the finish across the Waco Suspension Bridge for the first time since 2019.
The first triathlon in Texas was held more than 40 years ago in Waco and ran until 1991. The current iteration of the event has been running since 2009 and is put on by the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.
“This area of the United States is one of the highest in triathlon membership and participation anywhere,” Cortese said. “Waco's location, being central to Austin, Houston and Dallas, makes it a great location for travel. It's a perfect setup for a triathlon.”
This year's version of the race will look a little different than previous iterations.
Organizers announced that the swim leg of the race would be canceled due to the rising and fast flowing waters of the Brazos River due to one of the wettest starts to summer in two decades.
Additionally, Cortese said the section of the course along Waco Drive will be changed due to high water.
“It's just part of what we do,” Cortese said. “We have events that are outside in the elements, and things like this happen. Race week is busy because the momentum is building. You've worked for nine months, now everything goes faster until race day “.
Nancy Goodnight has lived in Waco for almost 30 years.
She had always been an avid runner, but when TriWaco started again in 2009, she went to the first meeting and was one of the first participants. Goodnight said he has competed in all but maybe two since then.
“It opened the door to other sporting events, it was a groundbreaking opportunity,” Goodnight said. “It was an opportunity for Waco to be seen as that type of venue for other sporting events.”
Waco also hosts the Ironman 70.3, which will run in October and is supported by the Greater Waco Sports Commission, a nonprofit organization that promotes sporting events in the city.
“You have a river that traditionally has little traffic downtown,” said Executive Director Mike Vogelaar. “The city has made so many investments and has a huge vision for downtown with hotels and restaurants. You have all this infrastructure built into one downtown.”
The Greater Waco Sports Commission sponsors a few athletes each year in October's Ironman race, and many of them will get their first taste of endurance competition Sunday in TriWaco.
Seeing them take another step toward their goal is what Goodnight, who also serves as GWSC board president, always remembers.
“I like the new competitors; I like first-timers,” Goodnight said. “A lot of Team Waco, it's going to be their first event. For me, that will be the best part of my day, seeing them come out. There's nothing better than people doing it for the first time.”
