CARLSBAD — In his job as a trainer at a fitness center, Jamie Brown once gave a club member a challenge of sorts to intensify her workouts.
“I don’t see any sweat on you,” Brown remarked to Erica Davis, a paratriathlete in training.
“Why don’t you train me and make me sweat,” Davis replied.
Like Davis, Brown enjoyed athletic endeavors despite physical disabilities. Born without a fibula in his right leg, Brown had his right foot amputated before his first birthday yet still engaged in youth sports, leading to a focus on baseball as a pitcher in high school and college.
So, in turn, Davis issued the Vista High grad a challenge to try triathlons.
Brown had hardly ever considered triathlons. Fewer than three years later, though, the Carlsbad resident is a two-time national champion set to compete in the ITU Paratriathlon World Championships for the first time in Auckland, New Zealand, on Sunday.
“At first I called myself a uni-athlete rather than a triathlete,” said Brown, 33, a training supervisor at 24-Hour Fitness in Escondido. “But the competitiveness and constantly trying to perfect three different sports definitely piqued my interest.”
Along with helping Brown with his training, Davis connected him with the Challenged Athletes Foundation in San Diego for support, including grants for travel.
“The more Jamie talked to me, the more I could see he’s a natural athlete,” said Davis, of Carlsbad, who is also competing in the world championships. “The first time, he did great in a relay. It was just amazing to see him take off from there. I’m very proud with what he’s accomplished in this short amount of time.”
Some of Brown’s early triathlon workouts were also with co-worker Vanessa Hobson, who first came to him to help lose weight following childbirth and ended up competing in local triathlons herself.
“I went with him on his first run because I was more of a runner,” said Hobson, a senior marketing manager in the company’s Carlsbad corporate office. “He said, ‘Let me run with you, and I’ll teach you how to bike and swim.’ He was on his normal walking (prosthesis) and could keep up. Then a month after he got his running leg, he was kicking my butt.”
Brown emerged on a grand stage a year ago as the winner among below-knee amputees in the New York City Paratriathlon, considered the national championship at the time. He had a time of 2:26:50 over a course that included a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40K bike ride and 10K run in just his second full race.
This year’s national championship was conducted at about the half those distances in anticipation of the shorter Olympic course for the debut of the sport at the 2016 Games. Brown again prevailed in 1:15 on May 23 in Austin, Texas.
Brown, who has just three fingers on his right hand because of his birth defect, draws not only on his past playing career, including Chapman University, but also an eight-year stint through 2010 as an assistant baseball coach at Vista High School.
