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02/21/2024 08:30 AMYou want to swim, bike, and run? You want to do it competitively? If so, you want to do a triathlon. That is what Bob Merrick does. A triathlon is an outdoor event, but Bob also trains indoors at the Valley Shore YMCA, where he is the new chair of the Board of Directors.
The Valley Shore YMCA is located in Westbrook, but it serves nine towns: Chester, Deep River, Essex, Clinton, Old Saybrook, Westbrook, East Lyme, Lyme, and Old Lyme.
“It’s a great fit for volunteer work for someone like me, who has had an athletic life, but the defining thing is that the Y is a place for everyone,” Bob says. “It’s a place where everyone from different parts of the community can interact in a way that’s healthy, that’s face to face, not virtual, and get along.”
Bob points out that the membership fees to join the Y do not cover its costs. Even so, there are financial accommodations for people who cannot afford membership.
“We rely on generous sponsors and donors,” he says.
In April, the Valley Shore YMCA will reveal plans for a new capital campaign to renovate existing locker rooms and reconfigure its lowest level to add facilities both for spinning and new cycling activities, as well as performance training and a community room.
As enthusiastic as Bob is about doing triathlons, those races are not what put him in the record books. And yes, he is in the record books. With partner Paul Foerster, Bob won a silver medal in sailing at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The pair sailed in the 470 class.
In 1996, with a different partner, Bob just missed going to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, coming in second place in the United States trials. His partner in that competition decided to move on, but Bob wanted to give Olympic competition another shot, and so he teamed with Foerster, who had already won a silver medal in 1992 in class of sailboat that was now no longer in Olympic competition.
Bob had his first sailing lesson in Portsmouth, Rhode Island when he was 11. However, he already had catching up to do.
“That was late,” he admits.
Bob continued to do other sports, too, including hockey and cross country.
“I even tried wrestling for a year,” he says.
Bob’s early sailing competitions were in a Laser, a single-handed sailing dinghy. He did well, but not well enough, Bob recalls.
“As I got to the top, I was not winning,” says Bob.
However, Bob adds that he started doing better in college at the University of Rhode Island (URI), where he was named an All-American for sailing in his senior year.
Bob majored in English at URI with no real idea of where that would take him.
“What did I think? Maybe that I would be a poet. I just enjoyed studying and didn’t ask why I had to assign utility to it,” Bob says.
Bob refocused his interests as a result of the types of development and refinement of boats that he learned through his experiences with sailing.
“I think I had science aptitude, but I lacked self-discipline,” he says. “I made a 180-degree turn.”
After the Olympics, Bob earned another bachelor’s degree at URI, this time in engineering. Today, he is a chief engineer at the Lee Company. The company, headquartered in Westbrook, makes precise fluid control devices with a variety of industrial applications, many of which are used in aircraft production.
Subsequently, while working at the Lee Company, Bob earned masters’ degrees both in engineering and business administration at the University of New Haven.
Bob not only found his career, but he also met his wife, Eliza Cleveland, through sailing.
Bob is a member of the YMCA’s Triathlon Club and participates in local mini-triathlons. For most people doing triathlons, the open water swim is the most challenging part. However, for Bob, it is the running.
“I am over 50 now, so I have to be careful,” he explains.
In 2018, Bob did a Half Ironman consisting of a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. He also competes in shorter Olympic distance triathlons. On two occasions, Bob has gone on to Age Group Nationals at the Olympic distance.
In July, Bob will compete in a triathlon in Quebec, where the cycling—in this case 32 kilometers—will be on a mountain bike, rather than a traditional road bike.
“It’s less of a slog on a mountain bike,” he says.
Bob can’t find the precise words to describe why he trains and competes in these exacting races, but one thing Bob knows for sure is that he loves to stay active.
“’Thrill’ is probably the wrong word,” he notes. “Not exactly sure why I do this at all, but I don’t think I would be happy if I wasn’t training for something.”
Still, there is one activity that Bob no longer trains for—the activity that put him in the record books.
“I haven’t sailed in ages,” he says.