LAKE PLACID – People often ask me “where my athletic abilities come from?” Interesting question! Must be Weibrecht family athletics. Although my father Ed is an avid skier (still at age 74), who alongside my mother Lisa got me into the sport, my guess would be that the daughter of my standout football player grandfather would be the obvious choice.
An athlete in her own right, mom was the women’s national champion in luge in 1977 and was one of the few women of her era to hold a pilot’s license in the half-mile bobsled. Beyond that Mom is an avid endurance athlete, and as kids, as part of family athletics she used to “march” us up and down the Adirondack peaks, of which I completed all 46 at the age of 10. Less than two years later, my younger brother Ethan aspired to be the youngest Weibrecht to finish the 46ers. Toward the end of the summer of 1998 we took our family’s boat up Lake Placid to Whiteface Landing to set out on Ethan’s final 46er – Whiteface Mountain.
For the first leg of the trip our quirky neighbor Mark swam alongside the boat (when he wasn’t bushwhacking through the islands), wearing his grandfather’s fedora and dragging an orange garbage bag full of clothes to hike in. In 1999 we saw the inaugural running of the Lake Placid Ironman Triathlon and the town was captivated by the idea of one very long day of endurance athletics.
Never one to buy into conventions Mom and Mark decided that they would do their own triathlon, which would include swimming from island to island up the lake, hiking up the back side of Whiteface Mountain, and then riding their bikes from the top of Whiteface down the mountain and back to their starting point.
Nearly 20 years later Mark and Mom’s tradition lives on strong, and this September they completed their most recent “unofficial” toughest endurance event in the Adirondacks. No announcers, no finisher’s t-shirts, just Mom and our longtime friend Mark taking to the water, mountain and road to test if they still have what it takes.
In the current world of notoriety and online documentation, Mark and Mom only care about testing their personal limits. It’s not hard to see where my drive and personal grit comes from; it’s not about being known, but rather it’s from family athletics and
knowing that you pushed yourself beyond what’s comfortable just for the fun of it all.
(Feature image from Whiteface Region)