I’m very pleased to report that Tikaro Interactive Programmer Will Ronco competed at the Iron Man Lake Placid yesterday, and came in fifth. FIFTH! This was after Will and his coach had decided to try for a top-thirty finish in this race.

Will was so happy after crossing the finish line, that they put his face up on the 2008 race results page. He’s also mentioned above the fold in the main coverage. Here he is having his Victory Thrash:

This means that Will is now qualified for the world championship in Hawaii this October. I’m thrilled and proud, but not surprised. Will is a hell of a hard worker, and has a tremendously cheerful, upbeat, and determined attitude. You can see some less ecstatically-happy finish pictures on Will’s Blog.

Congratulations, Will!

On a purely selfish note, may I recommend hiring a triathelete as a programmer? Will works in three “chunks” during the day, breaking for a morning and an afternoon workout. It’s actually amazingly productive, since he always seems to have fresh brain when he’s sitting at the keyboard, and it gives me some “stripes” of time during the day when I’m at the keyboard and he’s not. That’s surprisingly useful when you’re trying to write documentation for what should be done next, to know that the other person isn’t forging ahead doing stuff RIGHT NOW that might be contravening the instructions you’re writing. Plus, between my early-morning EDT start time, and his late-aftertoon MST finish time, we cover a fair amount of the clock between us. It works out great.