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Triathlons increasing in popularity on Long Island

BY JOHN HANC | Special to Newsday

May 13, 2008

"YOU ARE A TRIATHLETE!!!!!!!"

Written in capital letters and with no less than seven exclamation points, that was the exhortation on the bottom of the flyer for the Racing for Recovery Kids Sprint Triathlon in Eisenhower Park. There, on May 3, 55 local youngsters, ages 10-14, swam a quarter-mile in the Aqua Center pool, then biked six miles around the park, and concluded by running a mile.

In doing so, they not only helped raise money and awareness for a good cause (Racing for Recovery is a national, Ohio-based charity that promotes awareness and prevention of substance abuse) but they did indeed became triathletes-finishers of the swim-bike-run endurance event that became an Olympic event in 2000 and has become one of the hottest warm-weather sports on Long Island. Those 55 kids who stroked, pedaled, and sprinted their way through the park are the leading edge of a wave of thousands of local athletes, of all ages, who will be taking the plunge over the next few months as triathlon season arrives, with a splash-encompassing events from Hempstead to Montauk.

There are now many local triathlons to choose from, as well as the related "multi-sport" event, the duathlon -- which involves biking and running. That alone is a far cry from the day 25 years ago, when Dr. Steve Jonas, lined up for his first triathlon, the 1983 Mighty Hamptons in Sag Harbor. "It was the only tri on Long Island at that time," recalls Jonas, a professor of preventive medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook who has gone on to complete 114 swim-bike-run events, and also authored a training book, Triathloning for Ordinary Mortals (Norton)

"When I started it was all so new, nobody really had any idea how to train for it," says Nancy Lipira of Huntington Station, who completed her first triathlon 24 years ago. "The diet back then was water, now you have 10,000 different nutritional products out there. The plan was just go hard, go fast. Now we're taking heart rate, sophisticated training regimens. It's come a long way."

Another measure of triathlon's progress is participation by women. When Lipira started, she recalls, "there would be maybe a dozen women in total." Now, she estimates that women make up about one-third of the field in a typical Long Island triathlon.

It's hard to say exactly how many triathletes there are on Long Island. But by all indications, their numbers are growing: Nassau-Suffolk's largest triathlon, the Tobay Triathlon held in Oyster Bay every August, started with a few hundred participants in the 1980s. The field is now capped at 1,500-and the event has reached that limit for the past five years. Similarly, the Farmingdale-based Runner's Edge Triathlon Team numbered about 50 members in 2003. Five year later, it's up to 260.

Even the kid's triathlon in Eisenhower Park has experienced surprising growth. There were 28 youngsters in last year's debut event; this year it's twice as many, and co-race director Kathleen Hannan says, "parents are already asking if they can sign up their kids for next year!"