Transcription of Jeff Cole for the show Racing Maine #266
Doctor Lisa B.: This summer it was my great pleasure to spend time on the water watching the first, which I’m hoping will be first annual, Casco Bay Islands SwimRun. Today I have with me, Jeff Cole, who is the co-director of the Casco Bay Islands SwimRun. He has been involved in multi-sport and endurance since 2000. Racing in sprints to iron man distances. He’s a USA triathlon certified race director and organized the first Casco Bay Islands SwimRun, in August. You also are the president of Cole Harrison Insurance in Kennebunk and have been married thirty-seven years, wow. You got a lot of stuff going on there. You’re a busy man.
Jeff Cole: It’s been a wild ride.
Doctor Lisa B.: Yeah. I would say so. When I say that this was the first annual, I don’t want to put it out there if that’s not actually going to be the case. This was a pretty big deal to get it going in the first place.
Jeff Cole: It was and we have big plans to be here again next year and further on in the calendar.
Doctor Lisa B.: Tell me about this. It was interesting for me to watch because we had our boat off Peaks and we were watching the final leg. Basically this is … You start on an island and then you run that island and then you hop in the water, and then you swim to the next island, then you run that island. You keep doing this until you get to that final island, which is Peaks. Then you run up the hill and then you’re done but it’s more than that. You’re also hitched to a buddy.
Jeff Cole: You are. You don’t necessarily have to be but that’s one of the early elements that was established with the race in the Sweden, where it all began in 2006. It’s a team race as you said, it’s not a relay, so you’re partnered with either another woman, or a man, or a mixed team. The tether offers not only an element of safety, in conditions that would warrant the race director or his organization to mandate its use but it provides a strategic advantage as well. In that, competitors have to stay within a ten meter distance of one another. Where it’s very easy to become gapped while you’re swimming and not realizing where your partner is. Having that connection, keeps you together.
Doctor Lisa B.: I also heard that there’s a very different approach to competition, whereas if you see somebody and they’re struggling, somebody falls, you help them.
Jeff Cole: That’s part of swim-run. Not only is it an event that’s intended to utilize the local geography and nature and the environment that you’re in but also the social aspect of it and that would be, to reach out and help a competitor, or a fellow team that’s in the midst of, not necessarily, maybe having minor difficulties, tired or fatigued but where they’ve perhaps been injured, or need some significant assistance.
Doctor Lisa B.: This is different from many of the races that I’ve been in where if somebody gets injured, they go down, they wait for the medical team to come in to help them out.
Jeff Cole: Yeah. The unique part of swim-run is you’re in areas that may not be suitable to have an immediate response from a medical team, so absolutely Lisa. That’s one of the elements to the race that’s a little different.
Doctor Lisa B.: Let me back up a little bit because I said I was there at Peaks but this race started on Chebeague I think.
Jeff Cole: It did. It started in Chandler’s Cove on Chebeague, on the Casco Bay Line’s wharf and began with almost a two mile run on Chebeague, before they entered the water and swam to Little Chebeague.
Doctor Lisa B.: From there?
Jeff Cole: From Little Chebeague, then they swam across Chandler’s Cove to Cleaves Landing on Long Island. Then a jaunt over part of Long Island, to an area called the Nubble which is a very beautiful part of that coastline and they dropped in, through a slot in the rocks and swam across Shark Cove to Singing Sands at South Beach. Then a short swim over to Veil Island which Veil Island is an uninhabited, undeveloped, small island off the coast of Long, where they did a rock shoreline scramble. Which had a tendency to slow them down because it’s a very bold shore. Then they swam back to Long Island, ran to Fowlers Beach on Long. Swam to Peaks Island. I’m forgetting, this is going by memory. Over to Peaks Island, Evergreen Landing at Peaks Island. Then, probably the most scenic part of that element to the course, was a run through the Peaks Island Land Preserve and the trails there.
A very wild part of Peaks Island, if you can imagine that, being so close to the city of Portland, it’s quite beautiful. Then from there, a swim over to Cushings Island, run on Cushings. Swim then to Fort Scammel on the end of House Island, traverse the fort remnants and then come down, onto the beach on the east end of House Island and then finally, the swim over to Peaks Island and the finish line.
Doctor Lisa B.: There was a lot of coordination that had to take place around this because there’s active ferries that go back and forth and then you have, boaters. When I was out there, there were all kinds of pleasure boaters, power boaters, sail boaters, kayakers. This was a very busy Sunday morning, that this was happening.
Jeff Cole: There were a lot of moving parts. The race couldn’t have happened and happened as successfully as it did, without the support of the US Coast Guard, Casco Bay Islands Ferry, Nick Magadonis and his team there. Also, the Portland Harbor Master, Keith Battles, he was terrific. Not last and certainly not least, would be the team from Long Island and their public safety people. They deplored a force of about fifteen people throughout the day and worked very hard to keep the course safe and secure, and make sure that everybody had a safe event.
Doctor Lisa B.: How many people did you have compete?
Jeff Cole: We started a hundred and twenty-one teams. We had registered almost a hundred and forty teams. There’s usually about ten percent natural attrition, no-shows for various reasons but we started at a hundred and twenty-one teams.
Doctor Lisa B.: These were teams that basically had to qualify and be accepted. These weren’t teams who could say, “Hey I want to show up and do this.” This was a very special field that you were gathering.
Jeff Cole: It was. We had some fairly rigorous prerequisites in terms of experience and capabilities that people had to apply with. Form there, we handpicked about twenty, to twenty-five elite teams that we would call, that had either previous swim-run experience in Sweden, or had done multiple endurance events, adventure racing, things of that nature. Certainly long distance iron man swims were an important element. Even so, everybody still had to meet a minimum threshold in terms of swim times and then, the balance of the entries, then we lottery chose the remaining eighty-five teams.
Doctor Lisa B.: These were tickets that went fast.
Jeff Cole: They did. We were overwhelmed with interest quite frankly when we went live with seeking applications for the selection process. We had over six hundred applications in less than ten days and at that point and time, we’d established only a hundred team race slots. It was a challenge to find, or discriminate various applications because most everybody was very well qualified to be in this race but you’re right, it wasn’t the type of race that you decided on Friday that you were going to do the next day, like a 5K.
Doctor Lisa B.: Why do you think so many people were interested in doing something that frankly, is quite difficult?
Jeff Cole: Well certainly, our target audience were established adventure, endurance, racers and within that subset there’s a large number of people that have what I call, “triathlon fatigue.” They’ve done triathlons for a decade or more, it’s pretty much cut and dried what’s involved in that and I think that, they’re looking for something new. It became obvious to us, very early on that this hit a chord.
Doctor Lisa B.: What is the total … When we first heard about this at Maine Magazine, somebody went through and they calculated how much swimming this involved and how much running this involved. I don’t remember the numbers but I’m sure you know them.
Jeff Cole: It was four miles of combined swimming and pretty close to twelve miles of overland work. Between beach runs, shore scrambles, road work, trail work, about twelve miles so, sixteen miles combined.
Doctor Lisa B.: Which is pretty incredible considering that it’s not … I’ve run races but you’re on the road. You run down the road, you run up a hill, you run down the hill, you run back around to the finish. You’re not talking that, you’re talking trail runs, you’re talking rock scrambles, you’re talking … It’s not even pool swimming, you’re talking open water swimming.
Jeff Cole: Yeah the natural environment, provides some very interesting challenges that you don’t ordinarily encounter when you’re doing a triathlon with a nice paved surface road, a nice buoy marked swim course, that you just need to look ahead and see where those buoys are and where to go. With swim-run, you need to have some sense of being able to orient yourself with a compass and look across an expanse of water and know that from your map, there’s a swim exit point thirteen hundred yards across this expanse of water, that’s just about over in that direction. Also, taking into account the variabilities of current and tide, and wind and waves. Yes, it’s quite different and I think because of that, that’s why it attracted so many people.
Doctor Lisa B.: When we were watching, we noticed that it wasn’t necessarily a straight line that people would take to swim from one island to the next. Sometimes, if there was a duo right in front of you, then you could follow that duo but sometimes you’re like, “Oh it’s roughly over there.” We saw people go way over to one side, way over to the next. We kept having to move our boats. I think that, that’s what you’ve referred to when you say it’s a little different than what we’re used to. We’re saying, “Roughly this is where you go, have at it.”
Jeff Cole: Yeah. Some of those diversions were probably unintentional, as opposed intentional, with the current and so forth. Later in the race where you were, down toward Cushings and House Island, Peaks Island, the outgoing current got a little stronger than it had been when they started up at Chebeague. That may have taken them a little bit by surprise and they had to alter their course. Certainly, following the team in front of you, isn’t necessarily a guaranteed option that you’re going to land where you want to be. It’s those nuances to swim-run that are different and I think became more fully appreciated, as the day went on.
Doctor Lisa B.: It was striking to me the number of people who were almost at Peaks and they would stop for a minute and rest. We could hear them across the water, “I’m so tired,” and the other one would say, “It’s okay, keep going, we’re almost there.” That fatigue factor and when you’re talking about this current. I think about, you’ve gotten this many miles into this race and the end is in sight but still you’re body’s like, “Okay, okay.”
Jeff Cole: Yeah and surprisingly, there were only four teams that didn’t finish, so out of a hundred and twenty-one, a hundred and seventeen finished and pushed through that fatigue factor that you referenced. Beyond physical fatigue, I think there was mental fatigue and emotional fatigue. Some of these teams hadn’t worked together with swim-run, to any large degree as they may have put in race preparation for any other race because this was so different. Some certainly did, we had a pre-event in mid-July as a small test to par for the course. It was obvious with a few of those teams, that the struggles that they had to endure were quite different and it played upon their ability, to be able to interact in a positive way toward the end of the day. We saw some of that on race day. There were some teams that finished and they split up, and they were gone.
Doctor Lisa B.: Yeah. I can only imagine being tethered to somebody and that by the end of all of this running and swimming you’re like, “Yeah I am just done with you. This just didn’t work out that well for me, at all.” I remember, actually it was interesting, during the summer because we live on an island that’s connected by a causeway. I remember we would see footprints that would go from one side of the causeway to the other and we wondered, why were there wet footprints. We learned that there were actually some people who were out swimming around in the cove, that had walked across the causeway. That’s also interesting this idea of, where do you train.
Jeff Cole: For anybody that’s approximate to Casco Bay, they had the upper hand in being able to know where there outpoints were, understand what kind of terrain they were going to be on, that it wasn’t going to be a first time view for them, on race day. I think I know who you’re referring to when some of those people that went out and trained, they definitely had an upper hand for sure.
Doctor Lisa B.: Jeff, you have had a successful business. You graduated from Berwick Academy and the University of Maine. Your family’s been in Maine a long time. You’ve been married thirty-seven years, you have two grown children. Why would you put yourself through triathlons and endurance competitions, things like iron mans? You already had a lot going on. Why would you take this on and then why would you become a coach, and then why would you go to the next level and organize an entire event?
Jeff Cole: I think because it’s fun and it’s out of the box for me, in terms of what I do in my profession. It’s an interesting question that I don’t know that I have the perfect answer for, other than to say, I enjoy it immensely. The mental part about putting together all the working pieces to make an event like this successfully happen, that to me was a challenge that I thoroughly enjoyed throughout this. We were admonished quite early on that, “What are you doing? You’re going to go on some of these private islands. You’ll never get permission. These people are very cloistered and very private, you’ll never be able to go on that island.” That to me, set a bar that I wanted to be able to overcome and we did. I think part of that was, I’m not someone coming from a way that just wants to drop in here and take advantage of people’s largesse, not at all. We wanted to show them that we respected their privacy immensely and that was one of the reasons why we didn’t hold, that mid-July test event, on any part of the course that involved private property.
We stayed completely on public lands for that. I didn’t want to wear out the welcome. We were very careful about pledging that we would leave their homelands in a shape better than we found them. Our course monitors did a excellent job in picking up trash and litter, that our races didn’t leave. More importantly I think that our charity beneficiary, the Travis Mills Foundation resonated with a lot of people in the area, that know who that individual is and the sacrifices that he made, and what he intends to do from his experience. I think that, that aided us in being able to secure those types of permission to get on to private property.
Doctor Lisa B.: For listeners, who aren’t familiar with the Travis Mills Foundation, give us a little background.
Jeff Cole: Travis was a staff sergeant in the US Army and in, I think it was 2012, he put his rucksack down while he was in Afghanistan and just below the rucksack, was an IED. Travis lost all four of his limbs. He’s one of only five surviving, quadruple amputees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and he’s a miraculous young man. He’s taken this experience and he’s moving forward with his goal to transform a large estate up in the Belgrade Lakes area, to be a retreat for wounded warriors. All expenses paid for their families and their children, for weeks at a time. Our race benefited him with a donation of ten thousand dollars. At the finish line, Travis was there with his father-in-law Craig. We’re pleased and proud that he affiliated with us and we’re pleased to say that he’ll be with us next year and hopefully, going forward.
Doctor Lisa B.: Why did you choose his organization as a charity?
Jeff Cole: I think because his story’s quite unique and there’s a Maine connection to it too and a direct Maine connection. His wife is from Maine, he lives here now and he intends to use another part of Maine, the Belgrade Lakes area, that’s beautiful, to enhance the experience that he wants to be able to provide for other wounded warriors and make their life better.
Doctor Lisa B.: It must be also an interesting irony to participate in a race where you probably are going to benefit from having all of your limbs and be putting the proceeds of this race, towards an individual’s foundation who doesn’t have that anymore.
Jeff Cole: His motto Lisa is, “Never give up. Never give in.” I think that, that was a part of the essence of our race that I think, was meaningful to people that came here to do the races, that this was going to be a very tough day for most of them. It was very different, very different conditions to race in and despite, maybe some discomfort during the day that they may have felt, if they could think on what the race was doing for the Travis Mills Foundation and what he’s endured, and what his motto is that, that would have inspired them to keep going, and I think it did.
Doctor Lisa B.: What did you learn from this last year, that you will apply toward organizing future swim runs?
Jeff Cole: That it wasn’t long enough, believe it or not. Next year, we hope not only to have a longer version but we’ll also have a much shorter version for some folks, who aren’t quite at the point where they can do something of that length but they want to give it a try. We’ll have a shorter course, that will be about two miles of combined swimming and six miles of running but the longer course will be even more challenging because it’ll have close to six miles of swimming and sixteen miles of running.
Doctor Lisa B.: I’m sitting here processing this, people saying that it wasn’t long enough because when we were watching, the first people came in, they had literally been out there for hours.
Jeff Cole: Yeah. The winning team was three and a half hours, which was a little quicker than I thought that they’d finish that course. The last folks came through at about six hours, six twenty, so there was everything in between but it never ceases to amaze me how much more of a challenge, people are willing to subject themselves to. We’ve got some layouts for a longer course.
Doctor Lisa B.: Well I know that we will be covering the swim run, through the magazines here. I’m sure we will be back out there watching you next year. Do we have a date yet for 2017?
Jeff Cole: We do, it is the 13th of August next year, Sunday, the 13th. Basically the same weekend in the month. I’m hopeful that we’ll still have the welcome mat throughout those islands. I have no reason to believe otherwise and so, we’re already thinking about it and working on it.
Doctor Lisa B.: We will have the website for the Casco Bay Islands SwimRun on our show notes page. We have been speaking with Jeff Cole, who is the co-director of the Casco Bay Islands SwimRun. Thanks so much for bringing this to our lovely Casco Bay and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future.
Jeff Cole: Thank you very much and thank you for having me.