Welcome to our biography page. Here are your fellow Soul Brothers & Sisters and Soul Providers who will be by the peach on the beach on Sunday August 26.
Taking the honour of Soul Brother Number One is Vancouver’s Brian Harapnuk. Brian is a kindred spirit of IronSoul founder Sato Hydrosloth (Kevin Heinze) as the swim is his weak sport. Brian is 37 years old and grew up in Sechelt but now calls Vancouver home. He is married to Terri, who will be helping us out on the course. They have one daughter, Brooklyn.
When Brian is not crushing workouts he is an electrical engineer for BC Hydro. Brian has also crushed a few bags of potatoe chips in his previous life as a “fat guy” but morphed into an “Iron Guy” and completed Challenge Penticton in 2013. Challenge was the gateway drug to an impressive Iron habit that has included Cour D’ Alene (2014), Texas (2015), Whistler (also 2015 whaaaat??), Kona (also 2015 double whaaaat?) Lanzarote and Mont Tremblant (2016) , and is doing Whistler again this year.
(Unfortunately, Brain crashed on the bike while doing Ironman in Whistler and broke his pelvis and his collarbone. He won’t be with us on August 26 but out of respect for his enthusiasm for the event and to show him we care, Brian remains Soul Brother #1).
Iron Soul Provider Number One is Elise Reeh. (pictured in the safety vest!)Elise’s palmares date back to 2000 when she completed her first triathlon, the Great White North Half Iron. Since then she’s been doing half ironman distance races most years, the Oliver Half being one of her favourites. Elise also did Ironman Canada back in 2005, and still has stories about her harrowing journey back from Okanagan Falls in that crazy windstorm that claimed about one thousand glow sticks. On race day, Elise will be cruising the Cawston out and back to support you.
Soul Brother Number Two hails from the USA. Not too far from the Canadian border in Wenatchee, WA. David Wilson’s life, like many of us doing the IronSoul predates the invention of triathlon. David was a collegiate athlete, and one of his claims to fame is that once upon, a l-o-n-g time again he beat the legendary Steve Prefontaine in a steeplechase race. Never mind that Pre was doing his forth event of the day and had a twisted ankle. David’s other claim to fame (and one in which I’m trying hard to verify) is that he says he has been beaten by tens of thousands of triathletes over the course of his 32 years in the sport. Although he is now retired from his “day job” he continues to put in time training and coaching young runners and triathletes.
Pat Landymore will be another IronSoul provider this year. You will see him at T1, T2, and a few places along the run course. He was originally a skinny farm kid with no athletic talent whatsoever who discovered running in his early 30’s and triathlon a couple of years later. Pat first did the Stony Plain 1/2 in 1995, followed by ten Ironman Canada races, and quite a few olympics and half ironman distance races over the following 20 years.
He is currently on the comeback trail following a serious medical event in late 2016, with an eye on doing IronSoul next year and ‘real’ Ironman events once again in the years to come.
Soul Brother Number 3 and Soul Sister Number 1 come as a package deal. It’s time to meet Tony & Sharon Lonergan. Tony is originally from Manchester. Sharon provided a lot of the motivation for Tony to become involved in the sport. He did his first Ironman in 2006. Since then, Tony has been on an Iron-Streak that has seen him participate in 13 Ironman races all over the world including Penticton, Whistler, Western Australia, and UK (Bolton).
Rumour is that one year Steve King wanted to change the name of Ironman Canada to IronSharon Canada to capture Sharon Lonergan’s drive and tenacity. One thing for certain however is Steve’s respect for her, saying that, “If there’s anybody that can finish an Ironman its Sharon.” She completed her first Ironman in Penticton in 2004, however later that year she was in a car accident and broke her neck. She was in a halo for 3 months followed by a neck brace for another 3 months. As big of a setback that was, seven months later she was back on the road and competed the Kal Rats Sprint. Sharon continued her rehab and in 2007, Sharon was awarded the Iron Spirit Award. In addition to Penticton, Sharon has done Ironman races in Whistler, Western Australia, and in the UK. A very special moment for Sharon was back in 2008 when she won a lottery spot to do Ironman Hawaii. She finished in just over sixteen hours.
Unfortunately, on June 1, 2010, misfortune struck again and she got hit by a vehicle while riding her bike. She suffered a broken collar bone, a fractured hip, and a concussion. 14 weeks later Sharon was running through the finish line by the big peach! This year Sharon will be helping all of us out on the bike course and she will be helping Tony out on the run course, as she will be doing the second half of the second half of the run course.
Soul Brother Number Four is one cool dude. That’s because he originally from Flin Flon Manitoba but he found out that living in the city where Bobby Clarke was born was too much so he moved to Calgary. Rob Mott has spent the last seventeen years living in Calgary and learning about the sport of triathlon. In August 2007 he rode a SuperSport motorcycle to Penticton, camped overnight, and bought entry in to the 2008 Ironman Canada race. His second wife thought he was just “going through a phase”. It’s been quite the phase because he’s been doing an Ironman race per year ever since.
Some of Rob’s highlights were going 9:49 at Ironman Arizona in 2015, winning his age group at Challenge Penticton in 2014, and getting second overall at the HITS Iron-distance race last winter in Palm Springs. Despite these results, Rob claims that he is a chronic underachiever, I think most of us would want to ask him why he says this!
This spring, Rob proposed to Tina, an extremely supportive and loving gym-rat bodybuilder who has spectated at a ton of Iron-distance Triathlons. We hope to see her on August 26.
Rob’s quite excited to attend IronSoul 2018, and believes he has successfully persuaded a fella named Bruce to join us. Rob also now focusing on persuading Gord and Norm as well.
Soul Provider Number 2 is also from Calgary. Meet Rio Glowasky.
Rio is now a marathon and half marathon runner and has a history in triathlon dating back to the early 2000s! Rio was also part of my Ultra 520K crew, getting me through some of the toughest sections of the Princeton to Summerland double marathon on day three. Rio is also the person responsible for the uber chic IronSoul designs.