A week from now, I will have meandered my way out to the Beaton Classic, catching up with many of the usual suspects who have become staples of the Sudbury summer quadrathlon, folks who are more likely than not to be on hand at Moonlight Beach this coming Sunday morning despite the fact that the event had to be shelved the past two years running.
The names of those who will excel at this ultimate fitness challenge are familiar to all those who follow my written accounts of all things local sports with any kind of regularity.
Throughout the decade that was the eighties, Susan Nordman (now Hay) would have been one of those names.
The Sudbury native and now long-time resident of Thunder Bay could recall consistent top three finishes pretty much every single time she tackled the beast that was the original Beaton course, a gruelling athletic endeavour that often took twice as long to complete as would the current more athlete-friendly version that will take place in less than 48 hours.
“The Beaton was such an enigma, run out in the back forty at Laurentian (University),” said Hay this week, having successfully competed in a 55km cycling event last weekend as she nears her 60th birthday. “I was having to grab the rock faces with my hands, having to balance to get across the beaver dam.”
“A 10 mile bush run was crazy,” added the mother of two equally fit young adults (daughter – Sarah; son – Nathan; not to mention husband Darrell, well known for his running exploits in these parts over the years). “The wind was so bad one year and the waves (on Lake Ramsey) were so high that I stopped at an island and grabbed extra rocks to put into the bow of my canoe to help keep it down.”
“At one point, I was contemplating jumping out of the canoe and swimming with it.”
Still she returned, year after year.
“There’s so many great memories of the Beaton. You just had to be hardy with it; it was quite a challenge.”
Truth be told, Hay was among a group of mainstays racing on the provincial triathlon circuit at the time.
And while many will veer off to this tangent following years of youthful devotion to competitive swimming or running programs, the middle of three girls in the Nordman clan – and easily the most sports-minded – represented the true embodiment of the “Miss Fit – Sudbury” title that she had won three years running heading into the summer of 1989.
Hockey, basketball, nordic ski, softball, track & field were all part of the mix at various points in time for the young woman who would grow up on St Clair Street, just off Lorne and a hop, skip and jump from St Francis Catholic Elementary School.
“I would play softball in Copper Cliff in the summertime,” Hay recalled. “I think that’s how I got started with triathlons. I had to run or bike out to Copper Cliff if I wanted to play. I was doing cross-training before it had really been heard of.”
By the time the snow would start falling, the highly regimented young athlete would be ready to navigate a whole different series of trails. “I would go ski along a rough skidoo trail along Junction Creek,” she reminisced. “I would ski along that as far as I could go.”
“The odd time, I would get a ride to the university or the Voima Trails.”
Though her post-secondary studies would be split between Laurentian (one year) and the University of Toronto (three more years, completing her degree in physiotherapy), varsity athletic involvement was a given. It’s small wonder that the off-season would give way to a never ending variety of mileage-munching training sessions.
Having any kind of proficiency in the particular “sport du jour” was hardly a pre-requisite.
“I had no background in swimming,” Hay laughed. “When I started doing triathlons, I swam with my head above the water.” She and fellow Sudbury Star sports columnist Laura Young and a handful of others would initiate the process that would ultimately launch Laurentian Masters Swimming, a program still going strong to this day.
Cycling was only slightly less of an adventure for the determined multi-sport star.
“I wasn’t a very good pack rider,” said Hay. “I remember doing a crit (criterium) in Espanola and going off on a corner, through somebody’s driveway, across their lawn and back on to the course. I think I could hear Battista (Murreda – Sudbury Cycling Club coach) swearing in the background.”
“He was such a great mentor for me, very accepting of females in sport.”
All of the above should not diminish just how competitive Susan Nordman was – and arguably still is. While on her honeymoon in Acapulco, she competed in the pro category of a triathlon, placing high enough to earn some prize money (even if the cheque would subsequently bounce).
She would venture off to the World Triathlon Championships on two occasions, once in Vancouver and once when it was hosted in New Zealand in 1993. Much of that success she attributes to a growing group of locals who were hitting the tri scene all at roughly the same time.
“I had a really great group of friends that travelled around doing triathlons while we still lived in Sudbury: Brenda Taylor, André Fortin and others,” said Hay. “We trained together and did a lot of racing together.”
And it is exactly this same kind of camaraderie that is sure to be present, in spades, when the current group of Sudburians who share this same love of multi-sport competition will assemble for what remains one of the most unique events in the province, if not the country.
Long live the Beaton Classic.
