By Kim J. Harmon

GREENWICH – For some time now, Michael Nahoum has been a victim of mistaken identity.

Sure, whenever a Michael Nahom of New Milford would do well in a local road race, Michael Nahoum would gets congratulatory calls from friends and clients only he would have to politely inform the caller that, sorry, it wasn’t he who ran the race.

Well, Michael Nahoum can accept all the congratulatory calls he wants now because it was he – and not Michael Nahom – who ran the BMW Greenwich Cup Triathlon in July and finished third (um, out of three) in his age group.

The whole thing harkened back to the winter when Mr Nahoum and a group of friends got together at a party. Mr Nahoum, 61, had always been an athletic sort and competed in a few road races here and there, but his friends – a group of ‘kids’ (in their 50s) who have performed in lots of road races and some triathlons – started pushing.

“They goaded me into it,” said Mr Nahoum.

But the Greenwich Triathlon in Old Greenwich isn’t like a local five-kilometer road race. It’s a half-mile swim in the Long Island Sound, a 15-mile bike ride, and a three-mile run … what is generally known, in triathlon circles, as a sprint.

“Friends of mine, my contemporaries, thought I was totally nuts,” said Mr Nahoum. “My sister – who is eight years older than me – called me from Florida and told me to go see my doctor and get checked out.”

But he was ready for the ordeal – not just the race itself, but the rigorous training as well.

“I wasn’t that nervous about running,” said Mr Nahoum, “but I had never biked before. I had to go out and get a bike and the first day on it I couldn’t even get up a small grade. I went out the next day and got a little better.”

He swam with his friends at Lake Waubeeka in Danbury and biked with Tom Murtha and his family (Tom,  Mary Ann, Tim and Molly all competed in – and finished – the Greenwich Triathlon) and did that for seven weeks in order to prepare.

“It was a wonderful experience,” said Mr Nahoum.

It being his first triathlon – heck, his first race of any serious length – Mr Nahoum had not goals outside of the main goal.

“I had no time goal al all. My goal was to finish,” he said. “I read a book by a man who did the Ironman and his thing was, you got to have fun; get the value out of the experience and get the mental and physical high from it.”

Seeing the picture of him running on the beach, a huge smile on his face, it is pretty clear he had fun. Paul Fritsche, 28, of Danbury came in first at 1:03.42 and Mr Nahoum followed in 439th place at 2:03.01. There were 632 overall finishers with the last coming in at 2:42.07.

“It was great going across that finish line,” said Mr Nahoum. “It made all of it, all of the training, worthwhile.”

All of it – even the jellyfish?

“For the first 10 minutes I was getting bit in the face by jellyfish,” said Mr Nahoum, “but it was the only negative conditions of the race. It was a great day.”

After battling hoards of jellyfish for that half-mile swim, Mr Nahoum had to climb out of the water and get on his bike for the tougher 15-mile bike ride. But even that wasn’t the toughest part of the whole thing.

“The three-mile run was the toughest part for me,” said Mr Nahoum, who hydrated himself well and ate his peanut butter and banana, “because after that 15-mile bike your legs are like lead. That’s where the pain is.”

Yet he finished – and finished strong – and the experience was so good that he plans on doing the race again in 2006. But taking the next step up to a, say, tinman triathlon (1.1-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13-mile run) will take a LOT more goading.

“The thing that scares me about (the tinman) is not the swimming and not the running,” said Mr Nahoum. “I can’t train for those. But the 56-mile bike … holy cow!”

Local Woman First

In Her Age Group

Nancy McAlister, 40, of Newtown was the fifth female finisher and came in first in her age group (women 40-49) at 1:19.36 at the Greenwich Cup Triathlon. She finished just eight minutes behind 18-year-old Julie Gliesing of Redding.

Meanwhile, Tom Hislop, 35, finished 156th (57th in his age group) at 1:28.24 and Bruce Goulart, 55, finished 201st (10th in his age group) at 1:31.18.

As for the Murtha family –

Tim, 20, finished 278th overall (39th in his age group) at 1:36.08; Tom, 49, finished 377th (136th in his age group) at 1:45.43; Molly, 14, finished 176th (fifth in her age group) at 2:28.22; and Mary Ann, 48, finished 177th (51st in her age group) at 2:28.26.