The sun was just beginning to rise above the Manhattan skyline Tuesday morning as a strong contingent from the Gold Coast Triathlon Club was already hard at work.
The clock might have read just a tad past 6 a.m. Tuesday, but these dedicated athletes were already getting in a solid running workout at Weehawken’s Waterfront Park.
“It shows that we’re committed to the sport,” said Megan Wiseman, a resident of Hoboken. “The temperatures are better this early and it’s a lot quieter.”
“It actually gives me a lot of energy for the rest of my day,” said fellow club member and fellow Hoboken resident Eyal Maor. “I feel really good when I start the work day at 8 a.m. I feel like I accomplished something before I get to work. It keeps my mind busy. There’s a lot of motivation involved, because there are some days when you just don’t really feel like getting out there.”
Maybe that’s the greatest benefit of the club, which has been growing in membership in recent years.
Andrew Shore, another Hoboken resident, is one of the founding members of the club, which has about 100 active members and another 200 on a mailing list. Shore is one of the members who get up at the crack of dawn to get in a workout.
The club started in 2006. Shore had a bit of a history in triathlons, having family members who actively competed in the events.
Shore was a competitive swimmer at Rider University and graduated in 2004. He then decided that triathlons were a good way to remain in peak physical condition.
“I think it was always a little bit of a dream for me to compete in triathlons,” Shore said. “I like having the challenge of the three sports instead of just one. Most people who compete in triathlons don’t have to be good in all three. They just have to compete.”
For the novice readers, a triathlon is a sport that combines running, swimming and bicycling. The distances of the races vary from site to site.
“Most of the races we compete in feature a half-mile swim, a 10-to-16 mile bike ride and a 5K [kilometer] run,” Shore said.
The Olympic distances are 1,500-meter swims, 25-mile bike rides, and a 10K run. Triathlon has been a medal sport in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games.
There are also the Ironman distances which are grueling tests of human strength and fortitude, where most of the distances are doubled and even tripled.
“There’s no feeling that can compare to when you’re in a race,” Shore said. “There’s nothing I can compare it to. It’s such a rush when you finish something that most people can’t.”
So the members of the Gold Coast Triathlon Club get together to train and then eventually compete. And the group just grows and grows.
“It’s been exciting for me, because when we started the club, I thought we’d maybe get 50 members at the most,” Shore said. “But the popularity of the sport has dramatically increased over the years.”
There are some members, like Arland Macasiev and Bayonne firefighter Scott Duprex who compete professionally, but most do it for the love of the sport.
“We have a lot of professional people,” said Shore, who works in global financial systems. “But only a few who do triathlons professionally.”
The members train with runs in Weehawken, swimming at Stevens Tech in Hoboken, and bike rides from Hoboken to the George Washington Bridge or sometimes to Nyack, N.Y.
Shore said some of the swims locally in events can be challenging, like swimming in the Hudson River.
“It will always be the fastest swim I ever did, because I didn’t want to be in the water that long,” said Shore, who competed in the New York Triathlon in 2007, swimming in the Hudson. “It was pretty nasty. We also swim in some pretty nasty ponds.”
Maor competed in an event that included the Hudson River once.
“You just close your eyes and try not to think about it,” said Maor, who is the vice-president of a software company. “The water feels oily and you see things floating around. You convince yourself it’s not too bad.”
At age 28, Shore feels that he’s just hitting his perfect stride as a triathlon competitor.
“It’s very much a good diversion for me,” Shore said. “If only I could afford to pay my bills, I’d do it all the time.”
Shore will lead a group of approximately 15 club members into the Timberman Triathlon in New Hampshire next week. He competed in two triathlons in one weekend recently. It’s safe to say it’s more than a hobby, especially when you’re getting up before the sun rises to get in a workout.
Maor, a native of Israel, likes the social aspect of the club.
“We’re pushing each other and offering each other tips,” Maor said. “It’s a healthy lifestyle. It’s being outdoors and it’s being together.”
Wiseman, who works in marketing, was a competitive runner at Lynchburg College in Virginia.
“It started for me in the cross training aspect and just grew from there,” said Wiseman, who is one of the best female competitors in the sport. “It was a good change of pace for me. I got into triathlons right out of college and when I moved to Hoboken, I found out about the club. I used to train alone, but my biggest improvement has come after I joined the club. Having people to train with is irreplaceable. I’ve become a better athlete because of this club. It’s a whole new world and I love it.”
To learn more about the Gold Coast Triathlon Club, log onto www.gctri.org….
Jersey City native Rashon Burno, who had a brilliant basketball career at St. Anthony and later at DePaul University in Chicago, has signed on to become an assistant coach at Towson University in Baltimore, working under his coach at DePaul, Pat Kennedy.
Burno spent the last two years as the head coach at Marmion Academy in Illinois. He was also one of the producers of the documentary, “The Street Stops Here,” that was released earlier this year about the 2008 St. Anthony basketball team. Burno has survived his own litany of trials and tribulations in his life and now get the chance to be an NCAA Division I assistant coach…
The parents of the athletes at both High Tech High School and County Prep have not given up the fight to have athletics at the two schools, even with the school year just a few weeks from beginning.
One of the parents, Julie Harari of Hoboken, wrote in an e-mail that the parents have reached out to the New Jersey State Department of Education in an effort to keep athletics alive at the Hudson County Schools of Technology.
“We have not given up on the effort to re-instate the sports programs at High Tech and County Prep,” Harari wrote.
“A group of concerned parents filed a petition with the State Commissioner of Education,” the e-mail continued. “Although our request for emergent relief was denied, we are still resolute in our belief that the scholar-athletes were treated unfairly and shortchanged in their pursuit of excellence in the classroom and on the playing field. The scholar-athletes at the county schools took on the dual challenges of maintaining high academic standards and being competitive in sports. They are dedicated, hard-working, and successful. Now, there is no even playing field for the county high school students. Has anyone from the county or the municipal schools contacted these kids about participating in soccer or girls’ tennis this fall?”
Good question that is more than likely not easily answered. It’s not known where the athletes who participated in the fall sports at High Tech and County Prep are going to school or what they’re doing. It is known that athletes involved in other sports, like baseball, softball, and basketball, have made attempts to transfer to other schools. – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.