COURT HOUSE – Everyone has their own definition of “fun,” and for a group of local educators, theirs is training and competing in triathlons, including Ironman events, which cover 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running.

For this group, training and competing is more than fun, however. It’s a lifestyle.

“For me, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs over the years, and it’s a grueling task to keep your body going and injury-free, but it’s so amazing, and it’s fun. I love it,” said Ginny Traber, who started in 2004 running in a marathon.

Over the years, she has given birth to two children, had surgery to repair both ankles and faced other obstacles. Her son was only 6 months old when she first competed in the New York City Ironman triathlon.

An athlete in high school and college, Traber, 42, found that she missed having an athletic outlet and first entered an event that included running and biking. She saw others swimming in the distance, so she decided to add that to her competition the following year.

“Things took off from there,” she said.

She has raced all over the U.S. and in Canada, and just returned from the world Ironman championship in Kona, Hawaii. She qualified for that because she had competed in 12 Ironman triathlons, which are 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking and 26.2 miles running, for a total of 140.6 miles. She completed it in 13 hours 15 minutes, less than the maximum 17 hours allowed.

As a mom of two children, she often finds herself training early in the morning, before the family gets up to start their day. She is a health and physical education teacher at Cape May County Technical High School, and runs with other educators from the area.

“As a group, we have sometimes been referred to as the ‘IronEducators,'” she said. “We try to lead by example for various school students throughout the county.”

One of her colleagues, Phil Schaffer, superintendent at Margaret Mace Elementary School, North Wildwood, recently completed a triple anvil competition, which is a 336-mile bike ride, 78.6-mile run and 7.2-mile swim, in 51 hours. He competed in a double Ironman competition in 2021, so a “triple was a natural progression,” he said.

“We had 60 hours to finish it,” Schaffer said. “We started at 7 a.m. on Thursday, and about 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday, I took about a 45-minute nap. If you stop, the clock is still ticking.”

When he competes, his wife, children, other family members and friends set up a tent and cheer him on along the different routes. For the anvil, his crew made sure he would keep up his calorie intake, monitor his body temperature and ensure he was hydrated. It takes focused planning to ensure success, he stressed.

“The bike ride was a 5-mile loop that you had to do 66 times, so I would see my crew every 15-18 minutes and let them know what I needed,” he said. “You have to make sure you intake enough calories, salt, etc., so I was eating things like grilled cheese sandwiches, pretzels, bacon quesadillas and cheeseburgers with lots of ketchup for the salt and sugar.”

“I love it,” Schaffer said about training and competing. “You are always in training so you can stay race-ready. I find that if I stop working out, I crave that release. I love it when my kids are cheering, ringing a cow bell along the route. As a parent, this is a good lifestyle and behaviors that I can model for my children.”

His goal is to compete in the Ironman World Championship, but in the meantime he will continue training with his colleagues and competing when he can. He and Dave Smith, athletic director at Cape May County Technical High School, have been training and competing for over 20 years.

“Training is just part of my lifestyle,” Smith, 36, said. “I played basketball in college, so when my basketball career was over, I took some time off. However, something was missing, and I felt a void because I didn’t have any physical outlet.”

When he was a teen, he competed in the Stone Harbor triathlon, so he decided to try again to compete in triathlons. “I like to set goals,” he said, “and my goal is to make this a part of my life as long as I can. I don’t want to burn out, but this is my lifestyle. I love it. It’s fun.”

For Smith, his biggest challenge is running because “it doesn’t come naturally as I am a large person. Training can be a grind, especially when you are in month five or six and training at 4 a.m. Since I did a triathlon this year, I will train for a half next year and another triathlon in two years. You have to mentally and physically adjust yourself to what you need to do.”

When training, all three athletes fit in about 15 to 20 hours a week around job and family responsibilities. Besides physically preparing to compete, each also has to consider the financial cost of traveling to the event and staying there.

When Traber was in Hawaii, she would use self-talk to stay in the moment and get past any mental blocks. “The biggest challenge can be the mental aspect, to stay in the game,” she said. “You can’t have a mental block, so you need to turn off those negative voices that tell you it’s impossible.

“I will tell myself that I can do this, my family is waiting for me. In Hawaii, I wrote on my hand to ‘Enjoy the moment!’ I kept saying that to myself to remind me that this is why I am doing this. I wanted to remind myself to take notice of what was around me.”

For the most part, competing in and finishing a triathlon is the reward that these athletes earn at the end of an event. Medals are usually given to everyone. Professional athletes who compete can earn money.

“I guess you get bragging rights if you finish,” Traber said. “Having my son at the finish line, and his seeing my hard work reminds me of why I am doing this. I want my children, and the students we teach, to notice what can happen with hard work. It requires a lot of planning and scheduling, but I love it!”

“In this small area, we have a lot of incredibly good people who do races, train and support this lifestyle,” Schaffer added. “As a USA Triathlon-certified coach, I love the triathlon community and the lasting relationships that are formed from a common interest. To see my athletes succeed is priceless.”

Contact the author, Karen Knight, at kknight@cmcherald.com.