KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii — Evan Roshak had just settled into his writing class at Portland State University when he noticed a classmate wearing shorts on a frigid winter day and sporting a distinctive red tattoo on his right ankle.
“Are you an Ironman?” Roshak asked his classmate Will Watson.
Yes. In fact, Watson had gotten the tattoo after qualifying for this year’s Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. And since Roshak had Ironman aspirations, too, he began to train with Watson, and ultimately qualified this summer.
The two Oregon students are part of an atypically large contingent of undergraduate students who are here for triathlon’s pinnacle race.