All Eyes On: Brandon Farotto

Some people grow up wanting to become astronauts, celebrities or millionaires. Freshman Brandon Farotto grew up wanting to run a triathlon.  

His wish came true in September 2010, when he participated in the NEMO triathlon at Thousand Hills State Park. Farotto raced in the Olympic distance category, running five miles, swimming three quarters of a mile and biking 18 miles. He finished 98th out of 158 participants and placed second in his age group.

"Triathlons are kind of like the top tier of athletes," Farotto said. "People who do triathlons are pretty fit. I've always wanted to try it. As soon as I got here, I saw an advertisement at Hy-Vee for a triathlon. I thought ‘I'm going to do it.' I was running in summer, just for a change. I had a little bit of [a] leg up, but I only had a couple of weeks to prepare for the swimming. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing."

His friends and roommates were amazed at his decision to race in a triathlon.

"He's never done it before, so it was pretty neat that he was running it," Farotto's roommate freshman Chase Hobbs said. "That's a lot of endurance to take."

Farotto didn't have a coach to train him. He made a workout schedule for himself.  He ran six miles to Thousand Hills State Park and six miles back, a total distance of 50 miles every week. He mapped running routes online and often changed them to keep things interesting. He practiced swimming at the Pershing Natatorium. He biked around town.

Farotto was determined to keep up with his rigorous training schedule each week, despite the workload from a 15-credit-hour semester and his memberships in the Environmental Campus Organization and the health science fraternity Phi Epsilon Kappa.

"It was obviously tough," he said. "There were times I knew I had to plan my day out where I would go to class. Then I would have to tell myself, ‘All right, you have to get your work done here.' I would sometimes get up before class, do my workout, and go to class and do my homework, and later at night do another workout. I had to do a little juggling act."

Farotto's perseverance was encouraged and supported by his parents. His father, a chiropractor, was his team doctor at the triathlon. Farotto said he is glad that his parents encouraged him to participate in sports from a young age.  

"They weren't the parents that make you do sports," he said. "If you want to do it, then that's that. They never forced me to do anything, which is really cool because I got to do a lot of stuff that they didn't get to do. My dad wanted to play football, but his parents wouldn't let him. He let me do a lot of stuff."

Farotto has participated in athletics since he was in middle school, and he played football and hockey in high school. He said he would love to pursue a career in athletics.

"I could see him being a professional athlete," Farotto's friend freshman Gabby Epstein said. "I know he really looks up to Lance Armstrong. He has the shoes, the socks, the shorts, the jackets, the book bags. He keeps all his downtime to working out. He doesn't go out. That's what he does during the day. His fun thing to do is work out and stuff. He's a unique individual."

Farotto said he hopes to run a marathon next, and that he has already started training for it. His ultimate goal is to participate in a triathlon in the Iron Man category.

"It is a two-and-a-quarter-mile swim, a 120 mile bike and then a marathon at the end of it," he said. "That's going to be way down the road."