Transcription of Racing Maine #266
Speaker 1: You are listening to Love Maine Radio, hosted by Dr. Lisa Belisle and recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine, in Portland. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a writer and physician, who practices family medicine and acupuncture, in Brunswick Maine. Show summaries are available at Love Maine Radio dot com. Here are some highlights from this week’s program.
Steve Corry: You know, business drops off quite a bit in January and then, the cooks and everyone are looking for hours, so it’s an opportune time for me to say, “I will be the interim nanny, Mr. Mom, whatever you want to call it.” I think, again, the kids are in school all day, so my justification for taking on that new role was to train for the marathon. It allowed me to do the long runs and do the training that was required.
Jeff Cole: 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.: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 266, “Racing Maine.” Airing for the first time on Sunday, October 23rd, 2016. Many athletes set training goals according to upcoming events, like marathons and triathlons. Today we speak with chef and restaurateur, Steve Corry about his experiences with races such as Beach to Beacon and the Paris Marathon. We also discuss this past summer’s first annual Casco Bay Islands SwimRun, with founder, triathlete and coach, Jeff Cole. Thank you for joining us.
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Doctor Lisa B.: It’s always a great pleasure to spend time with people whose food I enjoy, in the restaurant setting but whose company I enjoy, outside of the restaurant setting and this individual, Steve Corry, who with his wife Michelle, opened Five Fifty-Five in Portland, in 2003. Steve has received several accolades, including Food and Wine’s best new chef in 2007 and Maine’s chef of the year, in 2011. In March 2011, Steve and Michelle opened, Petite Jacqueline, a more casual French bistro, named after Michelle’s grandmother. In Petite’s first year, it was nominated for a James Beard award for “Best New Restaurant in America.” Last year the Corry’s opened Portland Patisserie in downtown Portland. Actually, like two streets down from us, I think.
Steve Corry: Yeah, a block away.
Doctor Lisa B.: In the Old Port.
Steve Corry: Correct.
Doctor Lisa B.: Thank you for doing that.
Doctor Lisa B.: It’s pretty delicious stuff that you have down there.
Steve Corry: Great. Happy to have it there for you and for me as well.
Doctor Lisa B.: Yeah. You are doing really interesting work and you keep adding to it. From what I can tell, you and Michelle in addition to … You have two sons, I believe.
Steve Corry: Two sons.
Doctor Lisa B.: Two sons but you also work all the time.
Steve Corry: Yes. Well, as the owners of now three restaurants and two of which are open day and two of which are open at night. One of them is always open from early in the morning, to late at night. That dictates the work schedule, to some degree because everything is always changing. The two little boys, Seamus is nine years old now and Finnegan is seven. They’re in school full time, for most of the year but they certainly keep us busy as well.
Doctor Lisa B.: How is it that you are able to do things like run the Paris Marathon last April and also run the Beach to Beacon, for the last three years? How do you incorporate that into your life?
Steve Corry: Interesting question. Up until January of this year, we had a full time nanny, that while she didn’t live with us, she stayed with us on occasion, she worked a lot of hours and was hugely instrumental in helping to raise our sons, while we endured quite a work load. She had a baby and as of December last year, she went off on maternity leave and we were closing Petite Jacqueline, in January. December 31st was our last day at the old location, in Longfellow’s Square. We knew there would be a good period of time to find a new location for it. Five Fifty-five staff was solid. We come out of the holiday season and business drops off quite a bit in January and then the cooks and everyone are looking for hours. It’s an opportune time for me to say, “I will be the interim nanny, Mr. Mom, whatever you want to call it.” Again, the kids are in school all day, so my justification for taking on that new role was to train for the marathon.
It allowed me to do the long runs and do the training that was required, to actually get to the finish line. I was able to train while Michelle was at work and the kids were at school and then, I got them off the bus and took care of their after-school homework and activities, and dinner and lunches and all that. That’s why I did it because I think I would’ve gone crazy, out of my mind if I didn’t have something to work towards.
Doctor Lisa B.: Now, have you always been a runner?
Steve Corry: No, I haven’t actually. I’ve always adhered to some sort of fitness program, really self-driven to tell you the truth, to try and offset working in food and also beer. Prior to working as a chef, I was a brewer. Eating and drinking, it certainly can get ahead of you quickly. I was always trying to offset what I like to do for work and leisure, which is eat and drink beer, by staying somewhat fit.
Doctor Lisa B.: What about your younger years before you even got to the place of working, were you an athlete?
Steve Corry: I was in high school and coming up, I did, I played soccer. I played lacrosse, I played tennis, I played basketball, I played a little hockey, so there’s always some team sport coming up through school and what not. In college, not so much. College I spent most of my team skiing when I should’ve been in class. That was enough to keep me motivated to stay in shape as well. Just prior to Seamus, our first child, I let it go. I was about thirty pounds heavier than I am right now. I actually started to feel terrible, I had heartburn and I wasn’t in good shape and I could certainly feel the effects of it. It was such an eye-opener, when Seamus arrived and I was like, “Wow this is tough.” With the restaurants and lack of sleep, and this and that, I said, “I gotta put it back together.” Kind of got myself back on track and have stayed, relatively on track since then.
Doctor Lisa B.: What was that transition like? It sounds like you did a lot of team sports and then you’ve gotten into what’s most of the time, a very solo sport.
Steve Corry: It is and it’s a good question. It’s funny you ask that because I do a lot of mountain biking as well, pretty much on my own, or with one other, or I’m out in the kayak, myself or one other but I do play basketball. I’m part of a pickup basketball league called, the GOBL, “Gentlemen Only Basketball League.” Which the loose requirements are is that, you’re supposed to be forty years old and a father and relatively mild-mannered. It’s competitive basketball with a bunch of guys that we play every Tuesday night and there’s probably, twenty, or twenty-five of us on the list. As many as fifteen, or so will show up, any given Tuesday. We’ll play basketball for two hours and I get a lot of satisfaction from that, from the team. That fills that niche of that team sport and that camaraderie. Otherwise, I compete against myself. I’ll set goals for myself in terms of running and say, “Okay I want to come in at this time,” and the next time out, I’m trying like crazy to beat that time. Not so much in the kayak, or on the mountain bike but certainly with the running.
Doctor Lisa B.: Having been a runner also for decades now, which I hate to say it because that just ages me in such an incredible way. One of the things I notice, it’s very interesting, is the crowd energy around the races. I’ve been in both camps. I’ve run hard to race and I’ve run mostly just to hang out with buddies but there’s something that happens on race day. You can’t help but be impacted by the energy of it.
Steve Corry: No, it is a unbelievable feeling actually and it’s … You wouldn’t think that you’d get nervous for running because you know how to run but you do, you get charged up when you’re approaching. Even when you get up that morning and you’re starting your routine of, “Okay I need to get my nutrition right and hydrate and make sure I use the bathroom,” and head off to the race and then as you get closer and closer to the start line, there’s more people and it’s, I don’t know, it’s an uplifting feeling that’s … Yeah, there’s a euphoria to it that most people run for that feeling at the end. As you said, you get that at the beginning and then, all you have to do is bridge the gap. It seems a lot easier than the training, the race itself, most of the time.
Doctor Lisa B.: Do you have people that you run with when you do, say, Beach to Beacon?
Steve Corry: I do. My wife, we ran it … I can’t remember. It was probably seven, or eight years ago and we ran together. It was an incentive at the restaurant. It was just after Seamus was born. It was part of that get back in shape, time. We printed off t-shirts at Five Fifty-five and they actually had this slogan on the back that said, “The belly rules the mind.” Anyone that was going to run the race with us obviously got a t-shirt and they also would come back to the house, they’d have the night off and I was going to cook for them. We got the night off and come back and the beer, and the wine and the food was on me, I’m going to cook. There was a good six, or seven of us that ran. Which was a considerable percentage of the staff, given the year, when the restraint was much smaller. For the most part, no, I train pretty much by myself. Hours are very strange.
Up until a year ago … We lost our dog, but I would take our rottweiler out in the woods with me, deep in the woods because he liked to run as well. He could not be contained on a leash. He would be free at the woods and he was a rottweiler so he would upset people, so we would have to be by ourselves. Occasionally Michelle would go with us. It’s a very interesting dynamic, in that all of my training is pretty much solo and most of it, in the woods. Then the races for the most part, are these road races, with thousands and thousands of people. It creates a real different dynamic, a different feeling and I like it both ways.
Doctor Lisa B.: How are you impacted by the bystanders? I think sometimes I have found myself not impacted at all. If I’m running really fast, it’s almost like I can’t hear them. Then other times, I’m kind of ditzing along and I’ll go over, I’ll give them high fives, I’ll interact. It’s a funny thing, it’s like they are part of the scene.
Steve Corry: They are part of the scene and a huge part of the support. I enjoyed them at this year’s Beach to Beacon, not that I didn’t in the past. I think I was just comparing Paris to Cape Elizabeth, great distance in the two distances, that makes sense but I felt that there was so many of them, I guess, because you’re talking about a ten kilometer race. In Paris there were stretches at the end in particular, where you’re running through this park way in the western part of the city, that you’re just running through the woods and there was no one out there. You were like, “Oh I could really use a little push right now, a little help,” and so when you did come to these water stations and pockets, it was fantastic to get the support. I thought one thing that was nice about Paris, is that they actually had your name on your bib and where you’re from, your country. Even though your miles and miles away from home … The support system I had over there was my wife, my cousin and my two boys, this was just pass them once.
You’d hear people say, “Oh Steve. Go Steve.” I’m like, “Who knows me out here?” It was really nice. I said, “Okay if we’re not going to run to Beach to Beacon next year, we need to go and just bring the boys, just for supporting others sake,” but she said, “I want to run the Beach to Beacon next year.” Great, we’ll run it.
Doctor Lisa B.: It seems like you should be able to do both.
Steve Corry: Yes, you could do both. It’s a matter of someone needs to take the kids. If we’re both running, now we need someone to find the kids and get back to the kids and then get the kids to the race. That’s not that hard either.
Doctor Lisa B.: Yeah, I’ve done that too.
Steve Corry: Yeah.
Doctor Lisa B.: That’s also interesting. I think I was in my heavy racing phase when my kids were quite young and they remember going to the races when they were little. My brothers and sisters would help out with that. That’s also interesting for them to know that their parents are complete people, that do other things other than just be parents.
Steve Corry: Yes and a lot of the reason for staying fit, is for them to see that this is a very important thing. Regardless of how much you work, you need to take care of your body as well. I grew up and my dad was quite athletic and maintained a very strong athletic routine. I remember it. I remember his routine was, okay, it was push-ups and sit-ups. It was a while ago so it was, so many push-ups, so many sit-ups, okay then he would shower, then he would come out and he would polish his shoes up, put on his suit, and off he’d go for work. He would do this everyday and he was leaving the house before we were leaving for school, so I was up to witness it. I remember it, clearly. I want my kids to remember that as well because I think it’s so important to have athletics, for the sake of staying on the straight and arrow, so to speak. Also, the camaraderie that comes with it and the routine and the balance. I think it’s so important, on so many different levels.
Doctor Lisa B.: I also feel like Maine is pretty much one of the best places that one could train, most of the year. I train throughout the year, so it doesn’t bother me when it snows. It’s cold but doesn’t bother me. Most of the year, it is a beautiful and brilliant place to be.
Steve Corry: It’s perfect actually because it doesn’t get too hot, generally. I mean we’re coming out of the summer here and it was a warm one but I’m with you. I prefer it to be cooler. I think it’s a lot easier to train when it’s cooler, to cold. Paris Marathon was April 3rd, so the training was done throughout the winter. It was hard to get out there and run your twenty milers. By all means, it was hard to get out the door but two miles in, I was delighted with it. Yes, you had to put on some extra layers and this and that. The summer, it’s not so brutally hot that you can’t train so, I agree with you, it’s perfect. The outdoors, in Maine, I mean, you can’t beat it. Most of my trail running and what not was in Cape Elizabeth and so it’s around crescents, beach and you’re looking out at Richmond Island and you’re constantly looking up and distracted by beauty then the next thing you know it’s, “Oh, I’m done for the day, wow that’s fantastic.”
Doctor Lisa B.: See and I’m the same way. I can’t run on treadmills now, I feel like I’m spoiled. If somebody says, “You go do a five miler on that treadmill over there,” I’m like, “No I’d rather go on the city sidewalks, if I’m not in Maine.” There is something about being in the outdoors. Like you, I travel around and I get the ocean and I get island, and it’s so invigorating in a way that’s not just physical.
Steve Corry: It is. It hides a bit of the rigor of it and accentuates the vigor, if that’s said well enough. In that, yes … I think that sense of accomplishment is something else too. That you actually did get up and go out there and get it and you see things that you don’t even expect to see. The wildlife component to it. I almost stepped on a hedgehog the other day and then I jumped over a small, little, garter snake. I’m glad I was alone because I jumped about ten feet and I’m actually not afraid of snakes but those things you’re not going to certainly find on a treadmill. I can’t stand the treadmill.
Doctor Lisa B.: Well and this is not to say, people who run treadmills, I’m a hundred percent behind them. Anybody who’s listening, if you run on a treadmill, you go because that’s great. Do it anyway that works for you.
Steve Corry: More power to you, I say.
Doctor Lisa B.: Absolutely.
Steve Corry: Yes.
Doctor Lisa B.: I think it’s also interesting when I’m listening to you that because of the job that I do here, I don’t have to cook the food. I don’t have to create menus but I eat a lot of the food and I go out a lot and I got to a lot of events. For me, it’s very similar. There is a very important balance that takes place. There’s this understanding that if I’m going to have delicious food at Petite Jacqueline, or at Five Fifty-five, then I absolutely have to get up the next day and make sure that my body feels balanced.
Steve Corry: Yeah. I’m dating myself a bit too but it’s been decades of doing just that. I find now if I don’t do it, if I go for a stretch of time that I get out of balance to some degree. Whether it’s my nutrition falls off, or this past weekend for example, well, Labor Day weekend, a lot of family was up and this and that. We didn’t have a routine. I was able to do a lot of activities. We spent a lot of time at the beach, we were hiking, we were in the kayaks, this and that but I didn’t have my built-in run, kayak, or mountain bike, timed workout and I felt a little off kilter. I think it is so nice to have that outlet which has only, every benefit to it. Which also helps keep you grounded, balanced, whatever you want to say, it’s such a nice, convenient aspect of it. It’s an extra, added, bonus outside of the health positive effects of it all.
Doctor Lisa B.: It’s interesting to hear your story of when you had gained some weight and then your child was going to be born, then you said, “No, no, this can’t continue,” because I see this over and over again, personally but also as a doctor that, it seems as though, especially young men. Because young women, they have babies, there are other things that happen to their bodies that continue to keep them aware but young men especially, there’s some time between being in college, or being in your early twenties if you don’t go to college just working and then, somehow in your late twenties, early thirties, waking up to the fact that maybe you haven’t been tuned in to your body that much. Harding Lee Smith came on the show, he’s lost a bunch of weight. He’s a local chef. He’s a little older than his late twenties but he came to this realization. I think, Justin Walker, I don’t know that he gained any weight in particular but he’s a biker. It seems like it’s not only a young man thing but maybe even male, restaurateur, chef thing. Is that possible? I don’t know.
Steve Corry: It could be. Larry Matthews, he’s a good friend of mine, Back Bay Grill. He dropped a lot of weight, got himself fit with Crossfit. I was talking to him about that. Jonathan Cartwright who is the chef down at the White Barn Inn, he’s an avid cyclist and a very good one. He’s a very fit individual. I’ve always known him to be that way but I haven’t known him for all of his time as being a chef. It’s hard to work with food and not let it get to you because you constantly have to be tasting the food. Most of the restaurant food, there’s no secret to it, that the difference, what we’re doing at the restaurant that you’re not doing at home, is that we are not thinking about the excesses. Yes, there’s more salt, there’s more fat and more acid. I’d say, those are probably the big three that we pump those up and balance them, to create these tastes and flavors and sensations, and dishes that are so satisfying but you couldn’t eat them every night.
Don’t get me wrong, not everything on the menu is that way. The menus themselves have a balance so that those that are health conscious can certainly find that fare as well. To generalize, for the most part, people will go out to eat to eat food that they can’t eat at home. It’s my job to taste all of those foods, throughout all of the day and it’s very hard, to determine what your caloric intake is, or fat intake because you’re constantly taking a tasting spoon and having a bite. “I need to taste that, I need to taste that, I need to taste this.” I think it’s inevitable, you come to that realization that, “Wow I need to check myself a little bit,” because you will just put on pounds very quickly, very easily.
Doctor Lisa B.: There must be something also about the pleasure that you take … I can’t imagine that you would do this if you didn’t find pleasure in food. That’s a very sensory experience but also, running is a very sensory experience, biking, kayaking. There must be something about your physical makeup that makes all of these things have some relevance to one another.
Steve Corry: I have never thought about it that way but it certainly stands to reason, I would think. Sure, you make a very good point. I never equated the two. It’s not a separation between work and play, it’s not that black and white but I don’t know. It’s interesting to think about it that way because I haven’t done so yet.
Doctor Lisa B.: Well, I appreciate you coming here and talking to me. Makes me want to run, honestly, the Paris Marathon. Anybody who tells me a story about a race, I think, “Oh I want to do that.” That is the funny thing about being a runner, is it’s not even the time. It’s like, “Oh that experience. I want that experience. That sounds great,” and it sounds as if, whatever it was, whatever sense of accomplishment that you had out of that, it makes you want to go back. Even just to cheer on the people for the Paris Marathon.
Steve Corry: Yes, we’re always trying to get back to Paris. My wife is so French to sense and her dad was French, of course that whole side and we have French restaurants. We try to get to Paris, whenever we can but I will make a point of getting back there for the marathon. Whether or not I’ll run it again, it remains to be seen. My wife has no interest at this point in running a marathon. She’s four years younger than I am. Four years ago, I had no interest in running a marathon either, so who knows. The two boys, certainly the elder, he’s developed an interest now in running, so he’ll run some short distance stuff with us. No, to go back and support it, to see it … I think there was over sixty-thousand people running the race and it is absolutely gorgeous at the beginning of the race and then you’re out … Paris is only so big so you have to get outside of the city and you’re running in the country effectively, for the middle portion, then you run back to the city and then you’re in the west for a portion.
But when you are in the city and you’re running that amount of time, regardless of the distance, you’re running for that long and your mind goes to a different place. Then you look up and you’re like, “Oh yeah, there’s the Eiffel Tower.” It’s like, “Wow.” There’s a sensation to it. Part of it was like if we’re going to train for one marathon, let’s couple it up with a business trip and a culture trip for the kids and we’ll run the marathon at the beginning and then we’ll enjoy Paris, at the end of it.
Doctor Lisa B.: Do you have any races planned?
Steve Corry: Doing the Turkey Trot, five miler down in Long Island, where my wife’s brother and family live, obviously, around Thanksgiving. One of the guys that I play basketball with was proposing a two peak hike, race. I’m not exactly sure where, it’s one of the ski areas, that’s in the fall. He’s proposing that we do this trail race because he knows I like to run on trails but I’m not sure I want to run up a ski hill, down it and then up it again, but we’ll see. I’m always open to it. The Beach to Beacon this year was so enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, the Paris Marathon, that was very enjoyable and very rewarding but it was grueling. It was very hot that day and all my training was in the cold, so I wasn’t very pleased with my results per-say. Overall, the thing was fantastic but I really enjoyed the Beach to Beacon this year. The weather, the crowds, everything seemed to come off … It was one of those races where … I’m sure some days you feel very good and others you don’t. It was a last minute thing, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it, or not.
I got up and I had the bib and I walked up, right as the gun was going off so to speak, and felt great the whole race. It was one of those, “Ah this is fantastic.” Then at the end, one of the guys I play ball with lives right there. Instead of getting the bus, I called him like, “Any chance you can give me a ride back home?” He’s like, “I’m going that way right now,” picked me up and I was back at the house. I could walk from my house to the start line, obviously but the whole thing was an hour and a half and I was back home. I’m so glad I did it and I really had such a great time doing it.
Doctor Lisa B.: Well I hope that whatever your next … Whether you do the peak to peak thing, or whether you just go with that Turkey Trot but I’m sure that you will enjoy it. I hope that you have continued enjoyment with your running training because that’s ultimately the most important thing, from what I can tell, in this life. It’s not about the running of the races, it’s about the joy of the run, from what I can tell.
Steve Corry: I agree.
Doctor Lisa B.: I’ve been speaking with Steve Corry, who along with his wife Michelle, owns Five Fifty-five, Petite Jacqueline and the Portland Patisserie and is also, a runner and father and man of the world, and extremely busy, so thank you so much for coming in and having this conversation with me today and for doing the work that you do.
Steve Corry: It’s been my pleasure, truly. Thank you.
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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.
Doctor Lisa B.: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 266, “Racing Maine.” Our guest have included, Jeff Cole and Steve Corry. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Love Maine Radio dot com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on twitter as Dr. Lisa and see my running, travel, food and wellness photos as, “bountiful1” on Instagram. We’d love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our “Racing Maine” show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. Now, you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of Berlin City Honda, The Rooms by Harding Lee Smith, Maine Magazine, Portland Art Gallery and Art Collector Maine. Audio production and original music, have been provided by Spencer Albee. Our editorial producer is Paul Koenig. Our assistant producer is Shelbi Wassick. Our community development manager is Casey Lovejoy and our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti and Dr. Lisa Belisle. For more information on our host production team, Maine Magazine, or any of the guests featured here today, please visit us at Love Maine Radio dot com. Here’s a clip from our upcoming interview, with Susan Hunter.
Doctor Lisa B.: Also, it strikes me that you are wanting to help stem the brain drain.
Susan Hunter: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Doctor Lisa B.: The University of Maine, it offers so many things, depending upon what your desires are.
Susan Hunter: Yeah.
Doctor Lisa B.: One of the things that it has been doing and it’s got to be doing for at least a decade now, is scholarship money to the top students in high schools around the state. My son took advantage of that, so he got this great high-quality education and he got it, through having a full scholarship.
Susan Hunter: He got a scholarship.
Doctor Lisa B.: To the University of Maine and that’s so forward-thinking, to be able to say, “We really don’t want you to have to leave the state to get a good education.”
Susan Hunter: Well that’s something that we have been working on and we are, I’d say, putting even more intense focus on it. In part because the state of Maine is looking at both a, I would say, a demographic and a geographic challenge. We are the state with the oldest median age population and we are seeing a decline in the number of high school graduates, due to population decline, not because people are leaving high school. When you look at that, you realize that, the state is facing a shortage of people in the teen to twenties, to thirties, age cohort and seeing a rise in those of us, in my age cohort. Well, the whole state can’t run … We cannot have an economy based on 1.3 million retired people. We actually have to do everything we can to both, hang on to the talent we have in the state and make it attractive to stay in the state and attract people from other states.
We’ve got some programs that we’ve named, “The Maine Matters” program. Where we’re trying to make the University of Maine more affordable for middle income families. We have our Maine match program and that program is aimed at students who are looking at UMaine and they’re also looking at flagship, land-grant campuses throughout New England, so UConn, UMass Amherst, UVM, UNH. We’re offering a plan that we want to look at the financial aid package they’re getting there and do the best job we can, to make our financial aid very attractive, so that they will choose to stay in Maine and come to their flagship land-grant, campus. Then for out of state students, we’ve identified six states it’s, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Rutgers. Where the flagship campus’ in-state tuition is more than our in-state tuition.
In this case, we offer a two-tiered, merit award, so this is an academic merit award. Tier-one students from those states, if they apply and they are granted a tier-one award, they pay to come to the University of Maine, they pay what they would pay to go to their flagship campus. It’s this flagship match. If they get a tier-two award, they would pay more than tier-one but still not the full cost of being an out of state student. It has resulted in a thirty, I think the number is now thirty-eight percent, increase in confirmed out of state students, for this coming fall. It looks like it’s being successful and I’ll say one more thing on this and that’s, we see when people graduate from UMaine from out of state, it’s about fifteen to twenty percent, stay in Maine for their first job, so even if we don’t change the percentage, if we just jack up the number of people and the percentage stays the same, we will be retaining more people. We will be attracting people, educating them and more of them will stay in state. That will benefit the state of Maine.
Doctor Lisa B.: Do you think that you, as a university system are benefiting from the recognition that Maine is a great place to live, a great place to visit? I know that what I do with Maine Magazine, my position is predicated on that and I’ve lived here all my life. Is this also something that you think that, students are coming to recognize as they’re applying to go to college and wanting to experience themselves?
Susan Hunter: Well, yes. The short answer is yes. It seems to have taken off a bit more and I think, in part, that’s because … Part of it is the financial aid packaging and that. Part of it is marketing and frankly being, I would say, more aggressive and more perhaps, professional. Having people that know how to do that. We’ve done a much better campaign of PR. Billboards on the highways in New England, the radio and TV spots and then we had a firm that we hired, that did some marketing for us. They were able to get good stories in newspapers. We had a front page story in the Boston Globe, the Hartford Courant covered us. There was something in the Washington Post.
When you get that kind of coverage, it peaks people’s interest and then, more people start to come and look at the campus. Then they spend a day there and they come to an open house and all of that, it frankly gins up interest which is great because then more people discover you and I realize that there is something, when you make the trip to Orono, Maine, that there’s really something to find. That’s why we encourage people to come visit. Especially people that either haven’t ever been there, or haven’t been there in a long time. [inaudible 00:59:42]
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Love Maine Radio. We hope you can join us for next week’s program.