Transcription of Will Thomas for the show Running/Spring Feet #36
Dr. Lisa: When you think about spring feet and running, sometimes you think about triathlons so whoever to have in the studio with us today but Will Thomas, who happens to be a 2003 graduate of Bowden College, experienced triathlete and race director with years working to promote endurance athletics in Northern New England who in March of 2006 established Tri-Maine Productions. Thank you for coming in and talking with us today, Will.
Will: Thank you, guys. Pleasure to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Will, I know that one of the reasons we’re interested in having you in is that you were actually featured in the Bowdoin Magazine doing your thing.
Will: Yeah, I know. It was pretty unexpected but I’m very sort of humbled by it and thankful. It’s cool to kind of see how Bowden has sort of embraced that entrepreneurial endurance sports, that whole kind of category and one of my good friends, Matt O’ Donnell who is the associate editor there has become a transformed triathlete. He was formerly not an athlete and he did the Polar Bear Tri at Bowden and has since sort of transformed his whole experience around sports and it’s been pretty cool to watch. I think he was the one who kind of came up with the idea for the magazine and article and it’s been very cool.
Dr. Lisa: What is it about triathlons that seems to be so well, you used the word transformative? What is it? Why are people gravitating towards triathlons?
Will: Triathlon, the sort of the buzz phrase is triathlon is the new marathon. It’s become the kind of thing that people can brag to their friends about but not come across as sounding obnoxious or over the top. It’s the water cooler effect. People love being able to say after the weekend, “Hey, guess what I did,” and their friends are impressed and that’s what triathlon has become in the marketplace. It’s very attainable for a lot of people in a way that other types of events aren’t. It’s very much driven by community which I think is probably the most powerful part of the triathlon experience. People love doing this stuff together. They love training together. They love building new networks of friends and encouraging their family to do it with them. A lot of triathlons are built around family and community and that is becoming really the driver of the growth in my opinion. Unlike some of the other endurance sports out there, triathlon has a feel good component to it and it really is about getting that finish line more than what your time is and what your personal best is. It’s really about accomplishment and sharing and celebrating that accomplishment with friends and family. That to me is sort of the real excitement behind the sport.
Dr. Lisa: What was it about triathlons that drew you as individual to create this company, to work with Bowdoin? Tell us about your personal story.
Will: Yeah, it started when I was 16 so a long time ago and it was a challenge from one of my family members who had been doing them for a couple of years and said, “Hey, I bet you can’t do this.” Of course, I’m not going to back down. I was a 16-year-old, right? I signed up for a race having absolutely no idea what I was doing like most people but back then there were probably a dozen races in all of New England. This is 1996 so I had to borrow a bike. No one had the wetsuits back then, basically did the whole thing in a Speedo and nearly killed myself. It was pretty embarrassing and ridiculous but got the bug then and just started racing as much as I could. I think it was one of those I won my age group because I was 16 and there was no one else in it and I realized, “Hey, wait a second, I could win all my age group in every race if I just keep showing up.” That got me hooked and then I started doing it more and more and by the time I got to Bowdoin I had done probably 20 at that point and it was really a passion in my summers. I swam at Bowdoin and I had a lot of friends who were really athletic and into that kind of stuff but no one really knew how to do a triathlon or where to do them or how to prepare for one. I decided instead of having people asking all these questions and trying to give them advice and telling them where to go, I might as well just bring a triathlon here so they can experience it at the college. That was sort of the motivation behind the Polar Bear Tri and that was 10 years ago.
Genevieve: One of the things that I find interesting about triathlons is this notion of people having to dig deep that when you’re in the middle of a race that has that much diversity and endurance, you have to dig deep. What happens? When you’re running that race, what happens?
Will: That’s a really good question because it is an individual pursuit and you’re out there by yourself and it really is up to you to complete it. Talking to other people in my own experience, it really isn’t an individual pursuit because it takes all those people who have helped you along the way to get you through that moment. When I talk about the community of triathlon, you really are relying on your friends and family inside of you at that moment to help you overcome that pain, that discomfort, that sense of dread or impossibility and so if you don’t have that kind of support mechanism around you in your training and in your racing, it’s very hard to overcome that but it is different for each person, that moment of I don’t think I can do this and that doubt and really that’s the essence of the sport. If you can overcome that, you learn an incredible amount about yourself and it translates into confidence and excitement and a sense of accomplishment that will percolate into the rest of your life. It’s really a spectacular thing to watch. People I’ve seen … We started this work 3 or 4 years ago to what they are today, night and day in terms of personality and what they’re able to accomplish.
Dr. Lisa: Are you more or less likely to get injured if you are training for a triathlon? Than say if you’re training for a marathon.
Will: Generally, if everything was even, triathlon is probably better in terms of the wear and tear on your body. Clearly, that means if you know how to swim, right and if you’re swimming the right way, if you know how to ride and you know how to run but the cross-training has been shown over and over again to really have a lot of medical benefits and you’re not bashing your legs the way you do when you run a lot of marathons. That being said, people get injured doing anything so it’s hard to say if it is or isn’t more risky. People are on their bikes. There’s a lot of risk being on a bike more than being running. In general, triathletes tend to have sort of the healthier balance I think and in terms of how they take their work and family and incorporate their training into that, I see the triathletes tend to be a little bit more kind of balanced in that way. It’s not just, “I have to do this every day.” No, that’s all … Be all, End all. There’s definitely some flexibility that comes with the idea of having to do all of these different sports.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us about the Polar Bear Triathlon.
Will: The Polar Bear Triathlon is one of my favorite races of the year because the college really gets excited about it and we have this huge influx of students who come out and volunteer. You’ve got football players. You have hockey players. You’ve got women’s volleyball team, the whole swim team. Lots and lots of students come out in a way that they otherwise really don’t participate on a community events, at least when I was there that was the experience I had. You have a really neat confluence of the community members, the triathletes, the college, the teams and it’s sort of a celebration of spring and athleticism in Brunswick and Bowdoin and a lot of things that I think are just phenomenal. It’s a short race. It’s a sprint race. The swim’s in the pool. We do waves of 32 people at a time and they just kind of cycle through the pool. It sells out every year in about an hour, an hour and a half. It’s very popular and it really kicks off the outdoor tri season for people around here.
Dr. Lisa: Usually, people have to register how far in advance?
Will: We do 2 registration opportunities. One is in October and that’s sort of an early bird registration and there’s a limited number of spots for that and then the general registration is in late January typically.
Dr. Lisa: If people are interested in going to the Bowdoin … going to the Polar Bear Triathlon for 2013, then they would start thinking about training now and have it on their schedule to register coming up.
Will: Exactly, yup. They would be registering in the fall.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us how they can find out, how our listeners can find out more about the Polar Bear Triathlon or Tri-Maine Productions.
Will: The best way to do it would be through our website which is just tri-maine.com. We have lots of information there about all kinds of races, everything from triathlons to obstacle running to 5ks to everything you can imagine. Check out the website. We’ve got contact information there. Feel free to e-mail me directly and I love talking about this stuff. It’s my passion so the more I can encourage people, the better it is for everybody.
Dr. Lisa: Well, thank you for joining us today, Will. It’s been great to talk to you, Will Thomas from Tri-Maine Productions.
Will: Awesome. Thank you.