The indefatigable Dallas Tax partner Jeff Dorrill, a highly decorated triathlete who turns 62 this May, has been on a tear of late.
In March, Jeff won the national championship in his age group at the US Track and Field Ultra Distance National Championship in Long Island, New York. Jeff says he gained the confidence to compete in the national championship race following his success at The Cowtown Marathon earlier this year, where he won Grand Masters (age 60 and older) in the ultramarathon. In fact, he was faster than anyone age 50 and older in that race.
In April, Jeff won two national championships in his age category: in the Draft Legal Duathlon National Championship and the inaugural Mixed Duathlon Relay National Championship. The mixed duathlon pitted teams of four — two women and two men, who each completed a full duathlon (run, bike, and another run.) The racers’ times were added up for a relay team time. Jeff’s spouse Melisa was also on the relay team. Jeff jokes that he was super-strategic in convincing two of the fastest duathletes in the world to join his team, relentlessly lobbying them for months to join. “An attorney’s negotiating skills can pay off in unexpected ways,” he says.
With these wins, Jeff can now lay claim to eight national championships.
Between these races, and one day before the mixed duathlon relay, Jeff completed his 31st full Ironman at Ironman Texas in The Woodlands. His time earned him a slot to the 2023 Ironman World Championships in Nice, France in September. “In my opinion, the Nice course is, by far, the most challenging Ironman course in the world,” says Jeff, who has raced the Nice course once before and remembers a two-hour stretch climbing the French Alps where he averaged only six miles an hour.
Jeff concedes that the graduated age categories for endurance racing are helpful in evening the playing field. “Although I’m undeniably getting slower, so are all of the competitors in my age group, and the age categories give me a reason to want to get older. Every five years, I move into an older and less competitive age bracket!”
