Triathlon Man
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT WRITER
Ed Toole of 'Sconset has an interesting hobby, and it's taken him, among other places, to Lake Placid, to Calilfornia, across Canada and to Hawaii four times.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Toole: "Sometimes I will admit the training really gets to be a grind, especially as I get close to a race. I think, 'Why? Why do I do this?"

Most recently, it took him to Louisville, Kentucky, where he finished first among 45- to 49-year olds, and 50th overall out of 1,703 participants, in the Louisville Iron Man Triathlon.

For those of you with less demanding pastimes, let's put Toole's accomplishment into perspective: he swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles and then ran a marathon. All in one day. Oh, yes: it was the twelfth time he's done such a thing.

"Everybody should do it," he says. "The reality is we all have our hobbies, whether it's fishing, golf or gardening. Mine happens to be long-distance endurance events. People probably put in ten hours a week in their gardens - I put in ten hours a week on my hobby."

Toole says he'll run "maybe four times a week; I'll bike twice a week, and swim three times a week, on a good week. I've biked every road on Nantucket multiple times.

"Everybody thinks I train all the time, but the reality is I just train consistently."

Toole's finish in Louisville was something to write home about for the 48-year-old. When you consider where he placed in light of the number of people who took part you realize Toole is in an elite group of athletes. "This was my best placing," he noted. "My previous best finish was sixth best in my age group, so this is fun finishing number one."

Toole puts things into further perspective for us insular-minded triathlon spectators: "The Nantucket Iron Teams swim is a half mile, so you do that five times. The bike segment is like doing the 'Sconset- Polpis loop roughly 10 times, and the marathon is running

from 'Sconset to Madaket and back - all in the space of 10 hours and 9 minutes."

His finish qualified him for next month's world

championship Iron Man triathlon in Hawaii, but Toole said he wasn't too keen about another triathlon just seven weeks after Louisville. Besides, he's taken part in that event four times. "I didn't think my family would be able to come with me," he said. "It's not a lot of fun doing these things alone."

Rachel, his wife of 18 years, did accompany him to Louisville, and Toole says getting to travel is part of the allure.

He ran his first marathon in 1999, on a bet that he couldn't run a marathon in under four hours. He did. After running in the New York marathon and a couple of Boston Marathons he decided to give triathlons a try. "It's such a pain to travel from Nantucket, I have to get my money's worth," he joked. "I want to make it worth my time."

And, he says, it really doesn't take that much time out of his day to prepare for the long-distance challenges. "There's really no commute time on Nantucket," he says. "I'll go to the pool at lunch time, swim for an hour, and then eat my lunch in the truck.

"On the weekend, I'm up at 5:30, on the road at 6 and back by noon before my family even knows where I am. It's truly a function of fitting it in where you can. I've run all over the world - all you need is a pair of shoes and some shorts. I'll ride a bike indoors a lot, especially in the off-season. I spin in front of my TV."

His long-distance quests have led him beyond triathlons. A seven-day mountain bike race in British Columbia, where he crossed the Continental Divide, "is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done," he said. "We averaged 7 hours a day for 7 days straight."

That bicycle extravaganza is one of several held around the world that Toole hopes to compete in. One reason he didn't travel to Hawaii this year is because he and David Troast plan on taking part in La Ruta de los Conquistadores in November, a three-day, coast-to-coast mountain bike race across Costa Rica that its Web site calls "the toughest mountain bike race on the planet."

"I'm always trying to find new pigeons, new people to drag into the abyss with me," Toole laughs. "There are four or five epic bike rides … this will be my second. There's another one in the

Alps, one in South Africa. I'm trying to pick them all off eventually."

Toole finds athletic satisfaction right here on Nantucket, especially during the annual Iron Teams Relay, when he is part of a team with his sons Sam and Henry. When she gets a little older, his daughter Maggie may join them as well.

While he says the triathlons and long-distance events may be setting a good example for his kids in that he's eating well and staying in shape, he competes because "I just happen to do well at long distance stuff; it gives me something to look forward to.

"Sometimes I will admit the training really gets to be a grind, especially as I get close to a race. I think, 'Why? Why do I do this?' When you're with 1,700 other people at the beginning of a swim, they're like piranha, kicking and scratching."

Still, the sense of achievement is reward in and of itself. It also helps to have Toole's sense of humor. "I'm looking for endorsement deals. Geritol has called so far."