By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Karen George LeClair believes if you put your mind to it and are willing to do the training, anyone can compete in a triathlon.
The Montgomery resident is proof of her own belief, as Sunday she will compete in her second Olympic Distance triathlon and 10th overall when she heads to the starting line of the New Jersey State Triathlon at Mercer County Park in West Windsor.
“My main training partner is my husband,” said George LeClair, whose husband, Jeff LeClair, will also compete in Sunday’s event. “He did a triathlon and I went to cheer him on and saw all the people doing it. The best part is all the different ages and all different sizes of the people who compete. This is part of our training for the Half Iron Man we’re planning to do in September in Lake George. It’s called the Big George. It had my name it it so I figured it was a good one to try for our first Half Ironman.”
Once George LeClair caught the bug to compete she found the right group to train with. She and her husband are part of Run Around Princeton. The group trains together and enters races. There is a group within the group that competes in triathlons, the Run Around Princeton triathletes.
“I really consider myself a novice,” George LeClair said. “Most of my triathlons have been at the sprint distance. This one is a huge draw. Several of the people in Run Around Princeton were doing these long before me. Having a group to train with gives you that extra incentive. It’s sort of misery loves company. There are actually a few people from our group doing the Lake Placid Ironman this weekend. We think we are suffering though our training and then they have three more hours to go after we’re finished.”
Not only does George LeClair have the group to train with, she also has her husband to train with and for support. The two get up around 4 a.m. several times a week to make sure they get their training in as they prepare for competition.
“We are not competitive with one another,” she said. “He is tall and thin and fast and he is one of those people who is good at every sport in front of him. We give each other a kiss before each race and I tell him he has to meet me at the finish line.
“We were running together and he had done triathlons long before I had met him. Seeing him compete and all the support for everyone it was something I wanted to be a part of. With the bike and run it was new challenge.”
George LeClair has completed several marathons and from there made the move into competing in triathlons. She has little doubt what the toughest leg of the three has been for her since she began training and competing.
“Absolutely the swimming,” she said. “If you are not a swimmer as a kid or in college or high school, if you didn’t learn the technique, it’s tough to pick up. I learned to swim when I was young and could I could keep my head above water. But there is a lot of technique that you need to learn.”
Triathlons are not easy. The Olympic distance that George LeClair will compete at on Sunday requires a 1500-meter swim across Mercer Lake, 25.2 mile bike, and then a 6.2 mile run. To be able to compete at those distances requires quite a bit of training. The sprint event on Saturday will include a 500-meter swim, 11.5 mile bike and 3.1 mile run.
“We meet at the Bagel Barn and a lot of the time we ride through the Sourland Mountains,” George LeClair said. “We are running around Princeton and I think we have actually run all around Princeton. If we see a little road on the side we have not run on yet we say we have to find a route that leads us down that road.
“We have a Facebook page and depending on who posts and what they have on their schedule people will get together to train. We say we are going down to swim at the lake or we will post we have a 50-mile bike and a six-mile run and people will show up to do that together. We did that last weekend and there were two different groups that are doing two different course with a 50-mile bike ride and six-mile run.”
The camaraderie within the group makes all of the events special. Having that support certainly makes it easier.
“We plan ahead,” George LeClair said. “We have a tent and everybody brings drinks and snacks and we gather afterward. We are all out there encouraging each other. We don’t compete against each other.”
The next step for George LeClair and her husband will be the Half Ironman, with a goal of competing in a Full Ironman by 2019.
“When we did our 50 mile ride followed by six mile run, if it were a full Ironman we’d still have to do 62 more miles on the bike and a full marathon,” George LeClair said. “The thing with any of the races I have done, and especially a triathlon, is you can do it. It all comes down to training and the matter of if you want to put in time or commitment to do it. Do I enjoy getting up at 4 a.m. three or four times a week to train? Not necessarily. But the return is there for your effort.
“Our group has such a wide variety of people. We have some stay at home parents and other who work and travel for work. We do it because we love the challenge and being a part of it.”
