A remarkable woman named Bernie Endrosolan, a Napan for more than 30 years, will celebrate her 60th birthday Sunday by competing in a triathlon “Escape From the Rock.” Starting from a point near “The Rock” (Alcatraz) she’ll swim to Aquatic Park, a distance of a mile and a half in cold Bay waters — and that’s just for openers. The triathlon continues on dry land with a 2 1/2-mile run to pre-parked bicycles, a 13-mile bicycle race and finally a 7 1/2-mile run to the finish line at Crissy Field.

And one more thing — Endrosolan, a mother of three daughters and grandmother to six young grandchildren, has had a lifelong fear of deep and choppy waters. To compete in this endurance race, she had to learn how to swim and overcome her fear.

I met this brave woman on a recent afternoon at her hair and nail salon, Bernie’s, on Jefferson Street across the road from Napa’s Senior Center. I found her a diminutive, lovely, peppy lady, with a great deal of intestinal fortitude, which, as the writer Louis Adamic once pointed out, “we Americans call guts.”

She showed me around her salon and told me that she and her husband David, a contractor who “did wonders with the building,” opened for business in 1998.

But we soon got down to the matter of her athletic achievements. Endrosolan’s accomplishments are legion. Between celebrating her 40th and 50th birthdays, Endrosolan competed in two “Davis California Doubles” 200-mile bicycle tests, two Napa Valley Marathons, the “Oat Bran Ride,” (Tahoe to Utah) and, last but not least, bicycle events in Holland, Belgium and the French Pyrenees. Wow.

Early this year, the matter of competing in the “Escape From the Rock” triathlon came up over dinner at her daughter Jill’s house in Napa. One small problem was that although Endrosolan yearned to enter the contest, she didn’t know how to swim. David Graham, a friend who was at the dinner, told her that swimming could be easily learned, and she desperately wanted to believe that was true.

Determined to try, she, her brother, Mike Stone, and his wife, Cathy, signed up by computer for “Escape From the Rock,” and in January and February, Endrosolan learned to swim at the Napa Valley College pool in a six-week course, supervised and trained by instructor, Lynn Collins.

On the Fourth of July, the Stones took Endrosolan to Aquatic Park for her first real swim in San Francisco Bay. Endrosolan confessed that in those early days, she could barely reach the first buoy on a course she would swim in October, but Mike’s encouragement — “You’re gonna do it” — gave her the courage to go on.

For three months now, four days a week, Endrosolan has left her Napa home at 3:45 a.m., to drive to Novato, where she meets Mike and Cathy Stone, and the threesome hit the cold waters of the early morning bay with their only two onlookers, sea lions “Hughie” and “Dewey” flapping their fins and cheering them on. Try that regimen week after week and add on six day work-weeks at the salon, and you realize what real commitment is.

On Sunday, Endrosolan will have much more than sea lions cheering her on. Rooting from Tennessee will be her daughter, Jennifer and son-in-law Chet, a dentist, plus granddaughters Jordan, 8, and McKenzie, 7. Another daughter, Julianne, a doctor in Brooklyn, N.Y., will also be cheering her on.

In the Bay Area, Endrosolan’s husband and her mom, Marie Stone, 92, who doubles as the official bicycle watcher, will provide onsite encouragement. Endrosolan’s daughter Jill, an expert stylist, will also be there, along with Jill’s husband, James, who works at Napa Community Bank, and their four children, Caymus, 5, Harrison, 4, Lauren, 3 and Chloe, 8 months.

I never before met anyone with so much determination and courage, and on Sunday, I, too, will be rooting for one remarkable woman in the person of Bernie Endrosolan.

Ev Parker can be reached at evjenpar@mailbug.com or 224-9956.