Ten years ago, Marcy Fleischman never dreamed of entering a triathlon.
And that’s because 10 years ago “I’m not even sure I knew what a triathlon was,” she said.
But these days the 48-year-old Everett woman, who calls herself “a full-time student and mom,” has come to learn and love the swimming, biking and running endurance race known as a triathlon. She completed three shorter sprint triathlons earlier in 2009, capped the year with a longer Olympic triathlon, and sometime in the coming years she hopes to attempt a full Ironman triathlon.
“I never, ever pictured myself as an athlete,” she said. “But now I do.”
Fleischman is a protege of Gael Thomson, the membership and wellness director at the Everett YMCA, where she also teaches classes in Zumba, yoga, cycling and kick boxing. Thomson, a Scotland native with a delightful accent and a spunky demeanor, caught the triathlon bug herself several years ago and then decided to start a club based out of the YMCA.
Her club is one of several that have sprung up around Snohomish County in recent years, as many people — a lot of them very average athletes and some virtually non-athletes — have pursued better health through physical training. Clubs like Thomson’s provide both a structure for training and a support group of like-minded fitness participants.
“We’re all working for the same thing,” Fleischman said. “We’re working together and motivating each other, and there’s a camaraderie. It’s a real bonding experience.”
“A lot of people come into this with different ideas of what they’re looking for,” said Thomson, who has done 10 sprint triathlons and, like Fleischman, aims to do a full Ironman someday. “But I think ultimately they all experience the same thing, and that’s feeling good about yourself because it’s such a huge accomplishment.”
People who train for and then complete a triathlon “should feel a lot of pride in themselves and their abilities,” she said.
Thomson’s club has about 20 members, although there are probably twice that number on the e-mail list. She expects more growth next year, and she plans to add an indoor winter training regimen later this year.
This spring the club has been training outdoors with weekly workouts that are essentially sprint triathlons in themselves. On Sunday, for instance, club members met at Snohomish’s Flowing Lake for an early-morning swim, then headed to the nearby Machias Trail for biking and running.
The club is equal parts men and women, but men typically show up with more initial confidence, Thomson said.
For most men, “there’s no doubt in their heads about doing a triathlon,” she explained. “But (women) are a little more fearful.” Even after joining the club, some women “are still saying, ‘I wonder if I could do it.’
“And it’s OK to wonder if you can do one. It’s OK to come to the club every single week and just participate (in training workouts). That’s absolutely perfect to do that, because eventually you might want to get to the next level.”
Some triathletes are “very serious, serious people, and they are very intimidating,” Fleischman said. “But there are also a lot of average Joe Triathletes out there like myself. … I’ve always been into fitness and working out, but I’m not the picture of an Ironman. Or an Ironwoman, I guess you could say.”
But appearances matter little, she said, because “I’m just competing against myself. That’s what this is about for me.”
In fact, only elite triathletes really compete against each other. For most people, the goal is simply to get faster and to achieve something in the end that is very difficult and very rewarding.
“There are all shapes and sizes of people that do this,” Thomson said. “So this is actually anybody’s sport. Anybody can do a triathlon. As long as you can swim, bike and run, you can slowly make it to that finish line.”
And in a triathlon club like Thomson’s, “we can help you get there,” she said.
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